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JAMES WILSON, NATION-BUILDER 

(1742—1798) 

Signer of the Declaration of Independence 
Stalwart Nationalist in the Continental Congress 
Great Leader in the United States Constitutional Convention 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States on its Establishment 


A BIOGRAPHIC MONOGRAPH 



LUCIEN HUGH ALEXANDER, M. A. 

i« 

OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR 


[From the January, February, March and May, 1907, issues of The Green Bag 
Vol. XIX, Nos. 1 , 2, 3 and 5 ] 



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Copyright 1907 
The Boston Book Co. 


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The Green Bag 

Vol. XIX. No. i BOSTON January, 1907 


JAMES WILSON, NATION-BUILDER 

By Lucien Hugh Alexander 1 


O F but one man in all our history can it 
be said that his hand was on the 
Declaration, his spirit in our Constitution, 
and his intellect in the decrees of the 
nation’s highest court. Yet this man, 
James Wilson, the friend of Washington, of 
Franklin and of Hamilton, warrior, patriot, 
statesman and jurist, publicist, political 
scientist and orator of luminous mind and 
unrivalled learning, constitution-maker and 
nation-buildc as a result of one of those 
strange periodic cataclysms in the political 
thought of our people on great fundamental 
questions of national policy, was swept 
from popular view at his death, in 1798, 
by the great wave of anti-federalism which 
was then gathering force, and which so 
shortly afterwards engulfed the nation. For 
more than a century, except by the deepest 
students of our law and history, he was 
forgotten; but the great principles of re¬ 
publican government, which he personified 
and which he had been so potent a power in 
crystallizing into concrete form in the Con¬ 
stitution, stood immovable through the 
storm and stress, the shock and clash, of 
political warfare, which not only hurled 
popular heroes from their pedestals, but 
finally plunged the Republic into the 
greatest civil war of any nation or time; 
and now, from the shades of popular obli¬ 
vion, after three generations of neglect, 
James Wilson is emerging luminous and 
transcendent. 


1 This monograph will be biographic, and not 
propagandic, as was the author’s article sub nomine, 
“ James Wilson, Patriot, and the Wilson Doctrine ” 
in the 1906 mid November issue of The North 
American Review. 


\ 




No man, certainly no American citizen, 
more than a century after his death has 
received such a spontaneous tribute of 
respect and veneration as was paid him 
during the three days of last November, 
commencing on November 20th, at Edenton, 
North Carolina, with the disinterment of 
his remains from their resting place at the 
side of his friend and colleague on the 
Bench of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, Justice James Iredell, at whose 
home he died. At the peaceful Iredell- 
Johnston family grave-yard on the “Hays” 
plantation gathered Chief Justice Clark and 
other distinguished sons of North Carolina 
with representatives of Pennsylvania headed 
by Maj 01-General Gobin, the highest officer 
of the Pennsylvania militia, which Wilson 
himself once commanded. After brief but 
impressive ceremonies, including prayer by 
the Reverend Dr. Drane, addresses by 
General Gobin and the Lieutenant-Governor 
of North Carolina, and the reading of Penn¬ 
sylvania’s request for the body, signed by 
Governor Pennypacker, Chief Justice Mit¬ 
chell, United States Senators Knox and 
Penrose, the Mayor of Philadelphia, the 
Chancellor of the Law Association of Phila¬ 
delphia, the Provost of the University of 
Pennsylvania and other representative citi¬ 
zens, including the executors of Wilson’s 
last surviving descendant, and of the reply 
thereto by Hon. John G. Wood, owner of 
the “Hays” plantation, the remains, cov¬ 
ered by a thirteen stars flag, were trans¬ 
ferred to a special train and conveyed to 
Norfolk, Viriginia, the nearest seaport, 
under escort of the Pennsylvania and North 
Carolina parties, the latter including the 














2 


THE GREEN BAG 


Chief Justice and Lieutenant-Governor, the 
president of the state Historical Society and 
delegations from the societies of the Cin¬ 
cinnati and Sons of the Revolution. 

At Norfolk, the remains, in a severely plain 
but massive cedar coffin of colonial design, 
provided by the Saint Andrews Society of 
Philadelphia, were received by Captain 
Fechteler, U. S. N., commanding the United 
States man-of-war, Dubuque , under orders 
from the Navy Department to convey the 
body of General Wilson to Philadelphia, 
according it all the honors of his rank. As 
blue jackets of the United States Navy 
carried the coffin on board the U. S. S. 
Dubuque , the flag was half-masted, the 
bugle call sounded, and a major-general’s 
salute of thirteen guns fired, the United 
States marines attached to the man-of-war 
being drawn up in line and presenting 
arms. The remains lay in state on the 
main deck covered by a Union Jack, under 
guard by marines until their arrival at 
Philadelphia. As the Dubuque sailed from 
Norfolk, every man-of-war in the harbor 
half-masted its flag, and the forts fired a 
major-general’s salute. The saluting was 
repeated as the Dubuque passed the fortifi¬ 
cations on the Delaware, and as the body 
was brought ashore at Philadelphia, the 
Dubuque again fired thirteen minute guns, 
and an Italian battleship lying in the har¬ 
bor, as a mark of respect to James Wilson 
and the nation which was honoring his 
memory, half-masted its flag. The bell at 
Independence Hall at once began to toll, 
and so continued until the burial. 

On landing, the remains were met by 
the Governor of Pennsylvania, Admiral 
Craig of the United States Navy, Colonel 
Dickinson, commander of the marines at 
League Island Navy Yard, representatives 
of the municipal government, as well as by 
thousands of citizens. A battalion of 
United States marines served as a guard 
of honor to Independence Hall to which 
place the coffin was carried by blue jackets 
of the navy; and there the remains lay in 


state at the sacred spot where Wilson, liv¬ 
ing, had achieved his greatest triumphs. 
A wreath from the President of the United 
States was placed upon the coffin and this 
with a thirteen stars flag from the Pennsyl¬ 
vania Society of the Sons of the Revolution 
was buried with the body. 

On November 22 , at 1.30 p.m., the body, 
guarded by the City Troop, was escorted 
from Independence Hall to Christ Church 
by an imposing procession. The coffin, 
which was carried according to an old time 
custom, was followed on foot by the venerable 
Chief Justice of the United States, Hon. 
Melville W. Fuller and Associate Justices 
White, Holmes and Day, by the then 
Attorney-General of the United States, now 
Mr. Justice Moody, and other high federal 
and state officials, including representatives 
of the Congress, also by a delegation from 
the American Bar Association, headed by 
its president, Hon. Alton B. Parker, the 
last nominee of the Democratic party for 
the presidency, and by Hon. Joseph H. 
Choate, the last American Ambassador to 
Great Britain, by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, who 
was the author of the movement to bring 
Wilson’s body home to Pennsylvania, and 
who had himself some years before gone to 
North Carolina and located the grave, also 
by delegations from the Pennsylvania Bar 
Association, the Bar Association of the 
city of New York, the Law Association of 
Philadelphia, the Wilson Law Club of the 
University of Pennsylvania, etc., by the 
color guard of the Sons of the Revolution 
with their flags and banners, and represen¬ 
tatives of virtually all patriotic societies in 
Pennsylvania. At the tomb of Benjamin 
Franklin, Wilson’s friend and collaborator, 
the cortege halted in silence for an instant. 
At Christ Church the procession entered 
through the tower room, and with stately 
tread moved up the aisle as “My Country 
’tis of Thee” was sung as a processional. 
The Chief Justice and Associate Justices of 
the Supreme Court of the United States 
sat in the pew occupied by Washington in 







JAMES WILSON 


3 


the days when Philadelphia was the nation’s 
capital. No more intellectual audience ever 
gathered in America nor was ever a greater 
galaxy of speakers assembled on one occa¬ 
sion — all had come to pay their homage 
and voice their, tributes to the immortal 
patriot whose intellect, more than that of 
any other one man, over a century before had 
put in motion, under Divine guidance, the 
forces which have ever since shaped the 
destinies of the nation. After religious 
services had been conducted by Bishop 
Mackay-Smith, tributes were delivered from 
the chancel by the following: 

Governor Pennypacker, for the Common¬ 
wealth of Pennsylvania; Samuel Dickson, 
Esq., for the Bar of Pennsylvania; Dean 
William Draper Lewis, for the University 
of Pennsylvania; S. Wier Mitchell, M.D., 
LL.D., for American Literature; Andrew 
Carnegie, LL.D., for Scotch-American citi¬ 
zenship ; President of the American Bar 
Association, Hon. Alton B. Parker, for the 
American Bar; Senator Philander C. Knox, 
for the Congress; Mr. Justice White, of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, for 
the Judiciary; Attorney-General of the 
United States, Hon. William H. Moody, for 
the nation, and who had been selected by 
the President to represent the Executive 
Department of the government. The ora¬ 
tion was delivered by Hon. Hampton L. 
• Carson, the Attorney-General of Pennsyl¬ 
vania and historian of the Supreme Court 
of the United States. 

The speakers without exception rose to 
the full measure of this the most patriotic 
ceremony within the memory of any now 
living, and which in impressive simplicity 
and dignity has probably never been 
equalled anywhere. At the conclusion of 
the memorial services the body, escorted 
by the officers of the City Troop, which 
organization in 1779 at the Fort Wilson 
riot saved Wilson’s life, and followed by 
the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of 
the United States, by the Governor and 
Chief Justice of Pennsylvania and by fed¬ 


eral and state Bench and Bar, as well as 
by the delegates of the patriotic societies, 
including the Colonial Dames of America 
and the Daughters of the Revolution, and 
surrounded by the color guard of the Sons 
of the Revolution, passed for the last time 
through the portals of Christ Church where, 
living, Wilson had worshiped, as the strains 
of Kipling’s recessional rang through the 
the old church—“Lest we forget, lest we 
forget.’’ The interment was immediately 
effected in the same grave with Wilson’s 
wife, close to the south wall of the edifice 
— “the Westminster Abbey of America,” 
and near the tombs of other revolutionary 
patriots. Thus was James Wilson, the ris¬ 
ing prophet of a new dynasty of constitu¬ 
tion interpreters, after more than a century 
of neglect, brought to his own, his ashes 
were buried; but he was resurrected, and 
none can doubt but that his spirit and 
doctrine will ever live as an all potent force 
in our future national life. 

“ That man is more than clod, is more than cell, 
This solemn tread, this throng of crowding 

great 

This stirring pomp and pageantry of State, 
With boom of gun and long toll of the bell, 
Proclaim! How slight the sting of death! 

The knell 

That echoes at some lonely churchyard gate, 
Neither the clay disturbs, nor thoughts elate, 
That, from the very grave, rush forth to tell 
To generations of the sons of men 
The truths that free, that glorious things in¬ 
spire; 

Our heritage thus saved from fall of night! 
Oh, wondrous immortality! The pen 
Hath written, and the words, a kindling fire, 
Beacon the people’s path in living light.” 1 

1 These lines entitled 

“ On the Re-burial of a Signer of the Declaration 
of Independence, JAMES WILSON. 

Christ Church, Philadelphia, November 22, 1906,” 
were penned by Mr. Harvey M. Watts of Phila¬ 
delphia, after attending the Wilson Memorial Ser¬ 
vices and witnessing the procession and other 
functions incident to Wilson’s re-burial, and he 
has kindly consented to their publication for the 
first time in The Green Bag. 






4 


THE GREEN BAG 


Although a warrior of the Revolution, 
James Wilson’s civil services have over¬ 
shadowed every other feature of his life, 
and the historian of the future must record 
that more than any of his compatriots, 
more than Washington, Franklin, Madison, 
or even Hamilton, his intellect shaped the 
destinies of the nation in those crisal forma¬ 
tive years of the Republic. 

Theodore Roosevelt, since the days of 
James Madison, the most fertile of all our 
presidents in initiative power, delving back 
through the pages of history, has recognized 
in James Wilson the great constitution- 
maker and interpreter, and in these words 
acclaims his own appreciation of his worth: 

“ I cannot do better than base my theory 
of governmental action upon the words and 
deeds of one of Pennsylvania’s greatest 
sons, Justice James Wilson.” 

And it is indeed upon a solid foundation 
of constructive achievement, that James 
Wilson’s fame rests. An adopted son of 
Pennsylvania and America, he, the sturdy 
scion of the clans of Scotland, stands as 
the Old World’s most able, potent, and 
powerful contribution to American freedom 
and world-wide civil liberty. 

Bom of godly parentage, on the 14th 
of September, 1742, in or near St. An¬ 
drew’s, Scotland, the ancient capital of the 
Pictish kingdom, it was but natural that 
the civil conditions then dominating Scot¬ 
land should have had a marked influence 
upon the development of his character. 
[The Scottish Reformation had already made 
its impress upon the religious life of the 
people; and Wilson was reared and grew to 
manhood amid those stirring scenes follow¬ 
ing the Jacobite rebellion of 1745-46, 
which resulted in the arbitrary suppression 
under form of law, not only of many High¬ 
land customs dear to the peopleJ but of 
the Highland language itself, and in the 
conversion by the nobility of the lands into 
sheep walks and deer parks, thereby com¬ 
pelling migration, unless the farmers were 


willing to remain as tenants at will under 
oppressive conditions. 

Of his parentage, at the present time 
little is positively known, but a careful ex 
amination by his future biographers of the 
but partially explored and widely scattered 
wealth of manuscripts, will no doubt lead 
to more extended information. Letters 
from his widowed mother, Aleson Landale 
Wilson, who never crossed to the New 
World, indicate that his parents had edu¬ 
cated him with a view to the ministry, and 
they also evidence her religious fervor and 
deep interest in the welfare of her son. His 
own filial devotion never ceased, and he 
continued to aid in her support, even when 
he himself was in dire financial straits. 

There is at present a slight though non- 
presumptive doubt in the mind of the 
writer as to whether James Wilson’s father 
was one James Wilson, of whom we have 
but scant information, or Alexander Wilson, 
the distinguished Professor of Astronomy at 
the University of Glasgow, for both had 
sons at Glasgow named James Wilson about 
the time the American James Wilson was a 
student there. The James Wilson, Sr., re¬ 
ferred to was not a resident of St. Andrews, 
but of Douglas Parish in the County of 
Clydesdale; and all the probabilities indi¬ 
cate that the father of James Wilson, the 
American patriot, was Professor Alexander 
Wilson who was located at St. Andrews at the 
time of the birth there of the American James 
Wilson in 1742. This Alexander Wilson was 
bom at St. Andrews in 1714, his father 
being Patrick Wilson, the town clerk; and 
it was from St. Andrews University he was 
graduated in 1733 with the degree of M.A., 
also receiving from it in 1772 the honorary 
degree of M.D. Shortly prior to 1760, he 
engaged in business in^Glasgow and in the 
latter year became the first professor of 
astronomy in its University. He had a 
deep philosophic mind and materially ad¬ 
vanced the science of astronomy; indeed it 
was he who in 1769 made the celebrated 
discovery regarding solar spots and was the 







JAMES WILSON 


5 


first to demonstrate the now accepted theory 
concerning them, an account of which ap¬ 
peared in “The Philosophical Transac¬ 
tions” of the Royal Society of London in 
1774. He was also an author of a number 
of philosophical and scientific pamphlets, 
and died at Edinburgh on October 18, 1786. 
His second son was named James Wilson. 

In November, 1757, our James Wilson, 
then fifteen years of age, matriculated at 
the ancient University of St. Andrews, even 
then hoary with more than three centuries 
of learning. He there, in competition with 
nine other applicants, gained one of the 
four vacant bursaries; but he soon after 
entered the University of Glasgow, and 
from thence went to the University of 
Edinburgh, where he came in contact with 
four of the greatest minds in Scotland. 
Here he was thrown in close association 
with James Watt, of steam engine fame, 
who in 1762 had made his historic experi¬ 
ments with the Newcomen engine, and there 
also in 1763 he was under the celebrated 
Dr. Hugh Blair, the Regius Professor of 
rhetoric, and in 1765 he took the course in 
logic under Professor John Stevenson, as 
well as one in moral philosophy under the 
no less distinguished Professor Adam Fer¬ 
guson, — “ Fighting Ferguson,” who in 1745 
was chaplain of the famous “Black Watch” 
regiment. Dr. Ferguson was himself a St. 
Andrews man of profound learning and of 
great mental and physical vigor; Sir William 
Hamilton described his ethical teaching as 
an inculcation “in a great measure of the 
need of the warrior spirit in the moral life.” 
In 1761 he published a pamphlet on the 
importance of a Scotch militia, and in 1762 
organized a club, since historic, to aid in the 
establishment of the militia. Such in part 
was the environment and equipment Scot¬ 
land furnished the intellectual giant she 
sent forth to battle for religious and civil 
liberty in the New World. 

The dominant characteristics of Wilson’s 
life indicate that while in Scotland he must 
have become at least a residuary legatee of 


the teachings of St. Andrews’ great politi¬ 
cal scientist,, George Buchanan, who, even 
two hundred years before Wilson’s day, as 
pointed out by Andrew Carnegie, the present 
Lord Rector of St. Andrews, proclaimed 
in Britain in his “ De Jure Regni ,” that all 
power resided in the people, and that kings 
were only to be upheld so long as they 
wrought the people’s good, — a book which 
was suppressed by Parliament in 1584, but 
which became a standard authority in the 
hands of the men of the Long Parliament, 
and contained doctrines afterwards adopted 
by John Milton ) 

Wilson’s great power in America resulted 
in part from his superb educational equip¬ 
ment,—without it he could never have 
wielded the dominant influence he did in 
the great Constitutional convention of 1787. 
A manuscript letter from one of his teachers 
shows in one sentence that he was not only 
Scotch to the core, but that he had a due 
regard for physical exercise, for it contains 
a reference to the interesting fact that, 
when professor and pupil last golfed to¬ 
gether, Wilson was able to best his older 
countryman “on every round” of the links 
at St. Andrews. Wilson’s career may not 
answer the Carnegie inquiry as to “Why 
are the Scotch so very Scotch?” but it evi¬ 
dences the tremendous pertinacious power 
of Scotch blood, which since Wilson’s day 
has ever played an important part in the 
making of America. Wilson emigrated to 
America in 1765, but though thoroughly 
American in spirit he ever kept green the 
memory of his Scotch antecedents, and 
early joined the Saint Andrew’s Society of 
Philadelphia, serving as its president from 
1786 to 1796. 

Landing in New York, he for a time re¬ 
mained there; but, deeply impressed by the 
proceedings of the Stamp Act Congress, and 
the important part played therein by John 
Dickinson of Pennsylvania, the author of 
the celebrated Farmer's Letters , he jour¬ 
neyed to Philadelphia, arriving in 1766, 
and soon became a teacher in the College of 









6 


THE GREEN BAG 


Philadelphia, afterwards the University of 
Pennsylvania, which in that year conferred 
upon him the degree of Master of Arts, he 
having passed in the classics the best ex¬ 
amination of anyone to that date. Shortly 
after this he took up the study of law in 
the office of John Dickinson, and was ad¬ 
mitted to the Bar in 1767. He at once 
began practice at Reading, Pa., but soon 
removed to Carlisle, Pa., where from 1770 
to 1774 he had the largest practice at the 
Bar, the docket showing that of the 819 
cases in those five years, Wilson appeared 
in 346 of them. He was thoroughly estab¬ 
lished in his profession before the Revolu¬ 
tion, having early taken a place among the 
leaders, as the result of an argument in an 
important land case between one Samuel 
Wallace, whom he represented, and the 
proprietors of Pennsylvania. In 1772 he 
married Rachel, daughter of William Bird, 
a wealthy iron founder of Birdsborough, Pa. 

Wilson rapidly forged to the front as a 
great leader. In July, 1774, he was a dele¬ 
gate to the Pennsylvania Provincial Meet¬ 
ing of Deputies at Philadelphia, as well as 
to the Provincial Convention which also 
met there in January, 1775, but his greatest 
service to the development of the spirit of 
freedom in America, has so far been over¬ 
looked by historians. Yet what he did 
was a service which undoubtedly did more 
to crystallize a spirit of independence 
among the great leaders of thought in the 
American colonies than any other one 
thing. This was in August, 1774, when 
the first Continental Congress assembled in 
Philadelphia. Wilson was not a member of 
it, although the Pennsylvania Convention of 
July, 1774, had recommended that the As¬ 
sembly elect him a delegate, but there was 
distributed among the delegates to the 
Congress a printed pamphlet of forty 
pages, 1 from his pen, bearing date, the 17th 
of August, 1774, and in which with con¬ 
vincing logic, supported by exhaustive 

1 See same in full, Vol. II, Wilson’s Works 
(Andrews’ed.), pp 501-543. 


authorities, he demonstrated that the Brit¬ 
ish Parliament possessed no legislative 
authority over the American colonies. In 
his prefatory remarks he said: 

“Many will, perhaps, be surprised to see 
the legislative authority of the British par¬ 
liament over the colonies denied in every 
instance. Those the writer informs, that, 
when he began this piece, he would prob¬ 
ably have been surprised at such an opinion 
himself; for that it was the result, and not 
the occasion, of his disquisitions. He en¬ 
tered upon them with a view and expecta¬ 
tion of being able to trace some constitu¬ 
tional line between those cases in which we 
ought, and those in which we ought not, to 
acknowledge the power of parliament over 
us. In the prosecution of his inquiries, he 
became fully convinced that such a line 
does not exist; and that there can be no 
medium between acknowledging and deny¬ 
ing that power in all cases. Which of these 
two alternatives is most consistent with 
law, with the principles of liberty, and 
with the happiness of the colonies, let the 
public determine. To them the writer sub¬ 
mits his sentiments, with that respectful 
deference to their judgment, which, in all 
questions affecting them, every individual 
should pay.” 

In this argument, thus published to the 
world twenty-three months in advance of the 
Declaration of Independence, Wilson made 
use of the phrase “All men are by nature 
equal and free.” 

Again in the Pennsylvania Provincial 
Convention of January, 1775, in a speech 1 
which in the years to come will find its 
place as one of the most highly prized de¬ 
liverances of any American patriot orator, 
he declared that the ministers of George 
III had “abused his majesty’s confidence, 
brought discredit upon his government, and 
derogated from his justice,” and that “ap¬ 
palled with guilt and fear, they skulk behind 
the throne,” and he asserted that all the 
force then being employed by the British 
Government in the colonies “ is force un¬ 
warranted by any act of Parliament; unsup- 

1 Wilson’s Works (Andrews’ ed.), Vol. II, pp. 
S45-S6S- 












JAMES WILSON 


7 


ported by any principle of common law; 
unauthorized by any commission from the 
crown,” and then he said ‘‘if all this is true, 
— and I flatter myself it appears to be 
true, — can anyone hesitate to say that to 
resist such force is lawful, and that both 
the letter and spirit of the British Constitu¬ 
tion justify such resistance? ” At this point 
with great forensic power he showed that 
George III, ‘‘forgetting his character and 
his dignity has stepped forth and openly 
avowed and taken part” in the ‘‘iniquitous 
J conduct” of his ministers. Then, asking 
“What has been the consequence?” he 
thundered, “The distinction between him 
and his ministers has been lost; but they 
have not been raised to his situation, — he 
has sunk to theirs .” Compared with the 
boldness and courage of this utterance in 
the metropolis of America, Patrick Henry’s 
famous “—and George III may profit by 
their example” sinks to insignificance. In 
this same convention Wilson proposed reso¬ 
lutions as follows: 

“That the acts of the British Parliament 
for altering the charter and constitution of 
the colony of Massachusetts Bay, . . . for 
shutting the port of Boston, and for quar¬ 
tering soldiers on the inhabitants of the 
colonies are unconstitutional and void. . . . 
That all force employed to carry such un¬ 
just and illegal attempts into execution is 
force without authority; and that it is the 
right of British subjects to resist such 
force; that this right is founded both upon 
the letter and the spirit of the British 
constitution.” 

Wilson’s pamphlet of August, 1774, must 
have been carried by the delegates to the 
first continental Congress into every Amer¬ 
ican colony, and the arguments contained 
in it, thus disseminated from one end of the 
developing nation to the other, could not but 
have had an all-potent influence in crystal¬ 
lizing that spirit of resistance which later 
culminated in the Revolution. It demon¬ 
strated with irrefragable argument that 
under the circumstances rebellion by the 
colonists was legally lawful, and therefore 


would not constitute the participants rebels. 
The authentic and indisputable Mecklen¬ 
burg resolutions of May 31, 1775, — to say 
nothing of the disputed and so far unproved 
resolves of May 20, 1775, — are clearly based 
on the arguments advanced by Wilson, as 
is the great Declaration of Independence. 

So rapidly had James Wilson advanced 
in popular fame that in May, 1775, although 
in America less than a decade and but 
thirty-two years of age, he was selected 
with Benjamin Franklin, a Pennsylvania 
delegate to the Continental Congress, to 
which he was successively re-elected in 
November, 1775, July, 1776, and March, 
1777, although he was superseded at the 
election of September, 1777, partly as a 
result of gross misrepresentation as to his 
course in. the matter of the Declaration of 
Independence. Indeed many historians, im¬ 
properly absorbing the popular notion of 
that time, incorrectly assert that Wilson 
was opposed to Independence, being un¬ 
aware of his arguments during the two 
preceding years and failing to recognize 
that in the Continental Congress until a 
few days before the Declaration, he was 
bound by stringent instructions from the 
Pennsylvania Assembly, the constituted 
authority electing him to Congress. Wil¬ 
son’s subsequent demand in the United 
States Constitutional Convention, for the 
popular election of United States senators, 
and his unalterable opposition to their 
election by legislative bodies, may readily 
be traced to his forcible realization in 1776 
of the fact that a legislative assembly does 
not always represent the popular will. 
Until June 14, 1776, he was bound by the 
instructions of the Pennsylvania Assembly 
of November 4, 1775, which closed with this 
imperative mandate: 

“Though the oppressive measure of the 
British Parliament and administration, have 
compelled us to resist their violence by force 
of arms, yet we strictly enjoin you that 
you, in behalf of this colony, dissent from, 
and utterly reject any propositions, should 







8 


THE GREEN BAG 


such be made, that may cause or lead to a 
separation from our Mother Country, or a 
change of the form of this Government.” 

It was impossible for Wilson or any other 
Pennsylvania delegate to vote for Inde¬ 
pendence while bound by such drastic 
instructions. Wilson’s true attitude, fortu¬ 
nately for his fame, is set forth not only in 
his arguments, cited supra, but in what is 
perhaps the most extraordinary certificate 
ever given by members of a representative 
body in defence of the course of a co¬ 
member, and which the writer recently 
located in the Archives of the National 
Government. This document, now for the 
first time published, and dated “Congress 
Chambers, Philadelphia, June 20, 1776,” 
bears the names, inter alia, of John Han¬ 
cock, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, 
and is as follows : 

“Whereas it has been represented to the 
Congress that Reports have been circulated 
concerning Mr. Wilson, one of the Delegates 
of Pennsylvania to the Disadvantage of 
his Publick Character and the Misrepre¬ 
sentations have been made for his Conduct 
in Congress, 

“We the Subscribers Members of Congress 
do therefore certify, that in a late Debate 
in this House upon a Proposition to declare 
these Colonies free and independent States 
Mr. Wilson after having stated the Prog¬ 
ress of the Dispute, between Great Britain 
and the Colonies, declared it to be his 
opinion that the Colonies would stand justi¬ 
fied before God and the World in declar¬ 
ing an absolute Separation from Great 
Britain forever; and that he believed a 
Majority; of the People of Pennsylvania 
were in Favour of Independence, but that 
the Sense of the Assembly (the only repre¬ 
sentative Body then existing in the Prov¬ 
ince) as delivered to him by their Instruc¬ 
tions, was against the Proposition, that he 
wished the Question to be postponed, be¬ 
cause he had Reason to believe the People 
of Pennsylvania would soon have an Op¬ 
portunity of expressing their Sentiments 
upon this Point and he thought the People 
ought to have an Opportunity given them 
to Signify their opinion in a regular Way 
upon a Matter of such Importance — and 
because the Delegates of other Colonies 


were bound by Instructions to disagree to 
the Proposition and he thought it right that 
the Constituents of these Delegates should 
also have an Opportunity of deliberating 
on the said Proposition, and communicating 
their Opinions thereon to their respective 
Representatives in Congress — The Ques¬ 
tion was resumed and debated the Day but 
one after Mr. Wilson delivered these Senti¬ 
ments, when the Instructions of the Assem¬ 
bly referred to were altered and new In¬ 
structions given to the Delegates of Penn¬ 
sylvania. Mr. Wilson then observ’d that 
being un-restrained, if the Question was put 
he should vote for it; but he still wished a 
Determination on it to be postponed for a 
short time until the Deputies of the People 
of Pennsylvania who were to meet should 
give their explicit Opinion upon this Point 
so important and interesting to themselves 
and their Posterity; and also urged the 
Propriety of postponing the Question for 
the Purpose of giving the Constituents of 
several Colonies an Opportunity of remov¬ 
ing their respective Instructions, whereby 
Unanimity would probably be obtained. 
“Samuel Adams, John Hancock; Wm. 
Whipple; Thos. Jefferson; Thos. 
Nelson, Jur.; Benj. 1 Harrison; Wil¬ 
liam Floyd; John Alsop; Francis 
Lewis; Joseph Hewes; Robert Treat 
Paine; William Ellery; J. Rogers; 
Henry Wisner; T. Stone; Edward 
Rutledge; Arthur Middleton; 
Thomas Willing; Francis Lightfoot 
Lee; Robert Morris; John Adams; 
Step: Hopkins.” 

“Congress Chambers, Philadelphia, the 
20th. June 1776.” 

The delegates of several colonies were 
bound by instructions similar to those given 
by the Assembly of Pennsylvania; among 
these were the delegates from New York 
New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. Wil¬ 
son, with his keen foresight realizing that 
the Declaration would not be practically 
effective, and might indeed prove abortive, 
if not supported unanimously by the colo¬ 
nies, was straining every energy to secure 
an expression of the will of the people, 
whose temper he knew and trusted, and 
whom he had for so long a time, by resist¬ 
less logic, been preparing for the great step. 
Finally under pressure from the people. 




JAMES WILSON 


9 


headed by a petition from Wilson’s home 
county, Cumberland, the Pennsylvania As¬ 
sembly yielded, and on June 14, sent new 
instructions to the delegates in Congress, 
concluding as follows: 

“The situation of public affairs is since so 
greatly altered, that we now think ourselves 
justifiable in removing the restrictions laid 
upon you.’’ 

On the same day Delaware took similar 
action. On June 19, a Pennsylvania Pro¬ 
vincial Conference assembled, composed of 
committees of the people from the various 
counties, and on June 24 its members for 
themselves and their constituents announced 
their “willingness to concur in a vote of the 
Congress declaring the United Colonies free 
and independent States.’’ Wilson’s policy 
was being speedily vindicated. On June 21, 
the day after the certificate by Hancock, 
Jefferson, etc., concerning Wilson’s course, 
had been given, New Jersey authorized her 
delegates to concur in declaring Independ¬ 
ence. Three days later the Pennsylvania 
Conference took the similar action noted 
supra. On June 28, Maryland concurred. 

Thus was Wilson successful in holding off 
the vote until every state save one, New 
York, was swung into line for Richard 
Henry Lee’s resolution, which was adopted 
July 2, 1776, and which constitutes the real 
Declaration of Independence, the resolution 
being as follows: 

“Resolved, That these United Colonies 
are, and of right ought to be, free and inde¬ 
pendent States, that they are absolved from 
all allegiance to the British Crown, and that 
all political connection between them and 
the State of Great Britain is, and ought to 
be, totally dissolved.” 

Thus on the 2d of July, every State save 
New York,.concurred in the resolution de¬ 


claring Independence; but the delegates of 
New York were still bound by their instruc¬ 
tions; unanimity had not yet been secured 
and was still imperilled. 

On July fourth the Declaration in sup¬ 
port of Independence (drawn by the com¬ 
mittee of which Jefferson had been made 
chairman, because Lee of Virginia had been 
called away by the illness of his wife) was 
adopted by the vote of all the states save 
New York, and the old Liberty Bell pealed 
forth. The Biblical prophecy emblazoned 
on its side when it was cast in the mold, 
— “And ye shall . . . proclaim liberty 

THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE 
INHABITANTS THEREOF ”-Was fulfilled 

The seed sown through Wilson’s pam¬ 
phlet of August, 1774, had not only grown, 
but had taken deep root and was bearing its 
fruits. 

On July 15th there was laid before the 
Congress a resolution unanimously adopted 
by “The Convention of the Representatives 
of the State of New York,” dated July 9th, 
as follows: 

“That the reasons assigned by the Con¬ 
tinental Congress for declaring the United 
Colonies free and independent states are 
cogent and conclusive, and that while we 
lament the cruel necessity which has ren¬ 
dered that measure unavoidable, we ap¬ 
prove the same, and will at the risk of our 
lives and fortunes join with the other colo¬ 
nies in supporting it.”' 

Thus, at last, was unanimity secured 
The American Colonies were for the first 
time united, — the Declaration of Indepen¬ 
dence was a reality. James Wilson's first 
great mission to America had been achieved. 

(To be continued.) 

Philadelphia, Pa., December, 1906. 







9 8 


THE GREEN BAG 


JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 

By Lucien Hugh Alexander 
PART II 


T HE Declaration of Independence a real¬ 
ity, Wilson’s energies, with those of all 
the patriot fathers, were at once concen¬ 
trated upon the herculean task of making 
that Declaration effective and Independ¬ 
ence a reality. 

Wilson was among the first to recognize 
the necessity for efficient military organiza¬ 
tion ; and we can understand that the exam¬ 
ple of the strenuous Professor Ferguson at 
Edinburgh in urging the importance of a 
Scotch militia * had a powerful influence 
upon his course. For more than a year in 
advances of the Declaration of Independence 
he had taken an active part in organizing 
a militia in Pennsylvania — “ Associators, ” 
as they were called — and early in 1775 he 
raised a battalion of troops in his home 
county, Cumberland, receiving his commis¬ 
sion as colonel of the same on May 31, 1775, 
and with which, in 1776, he took part in the 
New Jersey campaign. But the urgent calls 
for his services in Congress compelled him, as 
one of the chief executive officers of the gov¬ 
ernment, to devote himself to civil duties 
there. At that time, as is well known, Con¬ 
gress through committees discharged the 
executive duties which now devolve upon 
the President of the United States and his 
cabinet officers; and the Board of War, of 
which Wilson was an original member, really 
served in the capacity, as the President now 
does, of commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy. Such a system was cumbersome, 
responsibility was divided and could not 
readily be fixed. Wilson’s realization of its 
essential weaknesses in practical operation no 
doubt led him to propose a single executive 
for the nation in the great Constitutional 
Convention of 1787, and to insist upon it 
with all the vigor he possessed “as giving the 
most energy, dispatch, and responsibility.” 

1 Continued from the January number. 

2 P. 5 supra. 


The record of James Wilson’s services dur¬ 
ing the early years of the Continental Con¬ 
gress is buried in the original documents of 
the period. Historians have but little more 
than scratched the surface of the mines of 
revolutionary information, which are now so 
thoroughly, yet so slowly, being made acces¬ 
sible through the classification, indexing, and 
printing of the wealth of manuscripts by 
national and state authorities, historical soci¬ 
eties, and private enterprise, under the lead¬ 
ership of W. C. Ford, Chief of the Division of 
Manuscripts, Library of Congress. The true 
history of those stirring times is yet to be 
written; and no one has as yet explored the 
archives with a view to differentiating Wil¬ 
son’s services and isolating them in a con¬ 
nected narrative. But wherever brought to 
view, they gleam with scintillating bril¬ 
liancy, and the documents of the period are 
•replete with testimony that the patriotic 
men of his time knew and valued his worth. 
It will be through the historian of the future 
that Americans will fully learn how much 
they owe t’o this wonderful man, who in the 
crisalyears of 1775, ’76 and ’77, though then 
less than thirty-five years of age, by untiring 
energy, infinite attention to detail and wise 
statesmanship, although battling against 
seemingly overwhelming odds, fostered 
among the people and in Congress those 
faint sparks of nationalism, which finally 
burst into flame and eventually made of the 
thirteen struggling colonies a great and 
powerful nation. 

The mere journal of the Continental Con¬ 
gress, while he was a delegate, is a startling 
index of how he labored and of what he did. 
It discloses that his influence constantly in¬ 
creased, and that gradually he became a mem¬ 
ber of every committee of vital importance 
and served on more than did any other dele¬ 
gate. That this is not generally known is no 
doubt owing to the fact that the indexing of 







JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


99 


the journal and other documents of the period 
is most deficient, necessitating a painstaking 
reading of the body of the record in order to 
get even clues to what he did. 

Commencing less than three weeks from 
the day he first took his seat in Congress, 
May 15, 1775, the journal discloses that he 
was elected by ballot with Rutledge, Jay, 
Lee, and Johnson, a member of the commit¬ 
tee of five, to consider and report upon an 
important communication from the Colony 
of Massachusetts Bay (June 3). He soon be¬ 
came a member of other committees: of 
three, to draft a communication on behalf 
of Congress to the inhabitants of Jamaica 
explaining the situation (June 3); of five, 
with Philip Schuyler and Patrick Henry, 
concerning papers on Indian affairs, trans¬ 
mitted by the New York Convention, and to 
report steps to be taken for securing and pre¬ 
serving the friendship of the Indian Nations 
(June 16); of five, with John Adams and 
Rutledge, on printing bills of credit, having 
plate made and contracting with the en¬ 
gravers (June 23). Within two months he 
was also unanimously elected with Benjamin 
Franklin and Patrick Henry, one of three 
commissioners to prepare articles to pacify 
the Indians (July 13). 

Then in' quick succession he became a 
member of the following committees, inter 
alia : of one, concerning tent supplies, etc., 
for the army (July 19); of two, with Thomas 
McKean, to prepare bonds for the Continental 
treasurers to execute (July 28); of five, to 
inquire into the s'tate of the Colony of Vir¬ 
ginia and to report provisions necessary for 
its defense (Nov. 10); of three, with Richard 
Henry Lee and Livingston, to draft a declar¬ 
ation in answer to sundry illegal ministerial 
proclamations concerning America (Nov. 13); 
of seven, with Rutledge, John Adams, Liv¬ 
ingston, and Franklin, to consider letter 
from Washington regarding disposal of such 
vessels and cargoes “belonging to the enemy, 
as shall fall into the hands of or be taken by 
the inhabitants of the United Colonies” 
(Nov. 17); on plans for trade with the Indi¬ 


ans (Nov. 23); of three, with Livingston and 
Jay, W’ilson, chairman, on thanks of Con¬ 
gress to the three generals in the Northern 
Department for their services (Nov. 30); of 
three, with Jay and Livingston, on letter 
from Lord Stirling (Dec. 8). 

During a part of this time he was away on 
business of the Colonies and a number of 
communications from him were received and 
acted upon by Congress. 

In 1776 his labors and influence increased. 
During that year he served, among other 
committees, upon the following, the member¬ 
ship of each being usually three or five, 
though sometimes but two: to take into con¬ 
sideration the state of the Colonies (Jan. 10); 
to prepare instructions for the officers in the 
recruiting service, of which Wilson was chair¬ 
man (Jan. 11); on letter from Washington 
(Jan. 15); to draft a letter to the Canadians 
(Jan. 23); to prepare an address to the inhab¬ 
itants of the United Colonies (Jan. 24); on 
sundry Indian affairs (Jan. 27); to contract 
for supplies for prisoners (Feb. 6); concern¬ 
ing support of prisoners (Feb. 6); to examine 
the capitulations entered into with prisoners 
and to see that they be observed, to have 
officers’ paroles taken and the orders of Con-- 
gress punctually executed regarding prison¬ 
ers (Feb. 7); to contract for rations for troops 
(Feb. 8); to consider into what departments 
the Middle and Southern Colonies ought to 
be formed “in order that the military opera¬ 
tions of the Colonies may be carried on in a 
regular and systematic manner” (Feb. 13); 
to report the best method of subsisting the 
troops in New York and the money necessary 
to send thither (Feb, 13). 

On Feb. 13 the committee on the address to 
the Colonies, appointed Jan. 24, presented its 
report. This report was written by James 
Wilson, 1 and although apparently unnoted 
by American historians, it is one of the most 
illuminating documents of the pre-Declara- 
tion period. James Madison, in a note to a 

1 See same in Wilson’s handwriting, “ Papers 
of the Continental Congress,” Vol. 24, folios 2x7- 
232. 






IOO 


THE GREEN BAG 


tw fi 

v 


copy of this address, in his note book No. i, 
says: 

“This address was drawn by Mr. Wilson, 
who informed the transcriber [Madison] that 
it was meant to lead the public mind into 
the idea of Independence, of which the 
necessity was plainly foreseen by Congress.” 

y \This document from beginning to end rings 
with the spirit of patriotism and there is 
hardly a line but is worthy of repetition. 
Space, however, will permit of but a few quo¬ 
tations. At the outset we have a clear 
enunciation by Wilson of the teachings of 
George Buchanan 1 of Saint Andrews: 

“That all Power was originally in the Peo¬ 
ple — that all the Powers of government are 
perived from them — that all Power, which 
they have not disposed of, still continues 
Itheirs — are Maxims of the English Consti¬ 
tution, which, we presume, will not be dis¬ 
puted. The Share of Power, which the King 
derives from the People, or in other words, 
the Prerogative of the Crown, is well known 
and precisely ascertained: It is the same in 
Great Britain and in the Colonies. The 
Share of Power, which the House of Com¬ 
mons derives from the People, is likewise 
well known: The Manner in which it is con¬ 
veyed is by election. But the House of 
Commons is not elected by the Colonists; 
and therefore, from them that Body can de¬ 
rive no Authority. 

“Besides; the Powers, which the House of 
Commons receives from its Constituents, are 
entrusted by the Colonists to their Assem¬ 
blies in the several Provinces. Those Assem¬ 
blies have Authority to propose and assent to 
Laws for the Government of their Electors, 
in the same manner as the House of Com¬ 
mons has Authority to propose and assent to 
Laws for the Government of the Inhabitants 
of Great Britain. Now the same collective 
Body cannot delegate the same Powers to 
distinct representative Bodies. The unde¬ 
niable Result is, that the House of Commons 
neither has nor can have any Power deriv’d 
from the Inhabitants of these Colonies.” 

Then Wilson continues with resistless logic: 

“In the Instance of imposing Taxes, this 
Doctrine is clear and familiar: It is true and 
just in every other Instance. If it would be 
incongruous and absurd, that the same Prop¬ 
erty should be liable to be taxed by two 


1 Vide p. 5 supra. 


Bodies independent of each other; would 
less incongruity and Absurdity ensue, if the 
same Offence were to be subjected to differ¬ 
ent and perhaps inconsistent Punishments? 
Suppose the punishment directed by the 
Laws of one Body be death, and that di¬ 
rected by those of the other Body be Banish¬ 
ment for Life; how could both punishments 
be inflicted? . . . 

“The sentence of universal Slavery gone 
forth against yOu is; that the British Parlia¬ 
ment have Power to make Laws, without 
your consent, binding you in all Cases 
whatever. Your Fortunes, your Liberties, 
your Reputations, your Lives, every Thing 
that can render you and your Posterity 
happy, all are the Objects of the Laws. . . . 
In Proportion, however, as your Oppressions 
were multiplied and increased, your Opposi¬ 
tion to them became firm and vigourous. . . . 
Many of the Injuries flowing from the uncon¬ 
stitutional and ill-advised Acts of the British 
Legislature, affected all the Provinces equally; 
and even in those Cases, in which the In¬ 
juries were confined, by the Acts, to one or 
to a few, the Principles, on which they were 
made, extended to all. If common Rights, 
common Interests, common Dangers and 
common Sufferings are Principles of Union, 
what could be more natural than the Union 
of the Colonies? 

“Delegates authorized by the several 
•Provinces from Nova Scotia to Georgia to 
represent them and act in their Behalf, met 
in general congress. It has been ob¬ 
jected, that this Measure was unknown to 
the Constitution; that the Congress was, of 
Consequence, an illegal Body; and that its 
Proceedings could not, in any Manner, be 
recognized by the Government of Britain. 

. . . To Those, who offer this Objection, 
... we beg Leave, in our Turn, to pro¬ 
pose, that they would explain the Principles 
of the Constitution, which warranted the 
Assembly of the Barons at Runningmede, 
when Magna Charta was signed, the Con¬ 
vention-Parliament that recalled Charles II, 
and the Convention of Lords and Commons 
that placed King William on the Throne. 
When they shall have done this, we shall per¬ 
haps, be able to apply their Principles to 
prove the Necessity and Propriety gni a 
Congress.” 

Turning to another phase of the situation 
he declares: 

“We wish for Peace — we wish for Safety : 
But we will not, to obtain either pi both of 











JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


IOI 


them, part with our Liberty. The sacred 
Gift descended to us from our Ancestors: 
We cannot dispose of it: We are bound by 
the strongest Ties to transmit it, as we have 
received it, pure and inviolate to our Poster¬ 
ity. We have taken up Arms in the best of 
Causes. We have adhered to the virtuous 
Principles of our Ancestors, who expressly 
stipulated, in their Favour, and in ours, a 
Right to resist every Attempt upon their 
Liberties. . . . Our Troops are animated 
with the Love of Freedom. They have 
fought and bled and conquered in the Dis¬ 
charge of their Duty as good Citizens as well 
as brave Soldiers. Regardless of the In¬ 
clemency of the Seasons, and of the Length 
and Fatigue of the March, they go, with 
Cheerfulness, wherever the Cause of Liberty 
and their Country require their Service. . . . 
The Experience and Discipline of our Troops 
will daily increase. Their patriotism will 
receive no Diminution: The longer those, who 
have forced us into this war, oblige us to 
continue it, the more formidable we shall 
become. 

“The Strength and Resources of America 
are not confined to Operations by Land. She 
can exert herself likewise by Sea. Her Sail¬ 
ors are hardy and brave: She has all the 
materials for Ship-building: Her artificers 
can work them into Form. . . . 

“Possessed of so many Advantages; fav¬ 
oured with the Prospect of so many more; 
Threatened with the Destruction of our con¬ 
stitutional Rights; cruelly and illiberally at¬ 
tacked, because we will not subscribe to our 
own Slavery; ought we to be animated with 
Vigour, or to sink into Despondency ? When 
the Forms of our Governments are, by those 
entrusted with the Direction of them, per¬ 
verted from their original Design; ought we 
to submit to this Perversion? Ought we 
to sacrifice the Forms, when the Sacrifice be¬ 
comes necessary for preserving the Spirit of 
our Constitution? Or ought we to neglect 
and neglecting, to lose the Spirit by a super¬ 
stitious Veneration for the Forms? We re¬ 
gard those Forms, and wish to preserve 
them as long as we can consistently with 
higher Objects: But much more do we re¬ 
gard essential Liberty, which, at all Events, 
we are determined not to lose, but with our 
Lives. . . We deem it an Honour to ‘have 
raised Troops, and collected a naval Force’; 
and, cloathed with the sacred Authority of the 
People, from whom all legitimate author¬ 
ity proceeds , ‘to have exercised legislative, 
executive, and judicial Powers.’ ”... 


Finally he declares: 

“It is in the Power of your Enemies to 
render Independency or Slavery your and 
our Alternative. Should we — will you, 
in such an Event, hesitate a moment about 
the Choice? Let those, who drive us to it, 
answer to their King and to their Country 
for the Consequences. We are desirous to 
continue Subjects: But we are determined 
to continue Freemen. We shall deem our¬ 
selves bound to renounce; and, we hope, 
you will follow our Example in renouncing 
the former Character whenever it shall be¬ 
come incompatible with the latter. . . . 
That the Colonies may continue connected, 
as they have been, with Britain, is our sec¬ 
ond Wish: Our first is — that America may 
be free.” 

Such are a few excerpts from Wilson’s 
great appeal. An amusing feature of cer¬ 
tain portions of this address, and in that 
respect it is also a masterpiece, is Wilson’s 
effort “to lead the public mind into the 
idea of Independence” and yet not to over 
step the instructions of the Pennsylvania 
Assembly, cited p. 7, supra, and for which 
he seems to have had an official respect, 
although no doubt a personal contempt, for 
John Adams records that on‘May 10, 1776, 
(June io) 1 after referring to the maxim that 
“ All government originates from the people,” 
he said: 

“We are the servants of the people, sent 
here to act under delegated authority. If 
we exceed it, voluntarily, we deserve neither 
excuse nor justification. Some have been 
put under restraints by their constituents; 
they cannot vote without transgressing this 
line.” 2 

But we are anticipating. Among other 
committees to which Wilson was appointed 
in 1776 were the following, and of some of 
which he was the chairman: to report con¬ 
cerning vessels exporting produce of the 
Colonies and importing ammunition (Feb. 
26); on memorial from merchants at Mon¬ 
treal respecting Indian trade (March 4); on 
letters of marque and reprisal (March 19); 

1 Jefferson has the date correctly, June 10; vide 
p. 1086, Vol. VI. Ford Reprint of Journals of Con¬ 
tinental Congress. 

2 Ibid., p. 1075. 







102 


THE GREEN BAG 


to superintend printing of the Journal of 
Congress (March 21); on letter from General 
Washington (Apr. 3); respecting Governor 
Try on’s conduct (Apr. n); in re Indian 
affairs (Apr. 30); on communication from 
General Lee (May 20); “to confer with 
General Washington, Major General Gates, 
and Brigadier General Mifflin, upon the 
most speedy and effectual means for sup¬ 
porting the American cause in Canada ” 
(May 23); to confer with the same Generals 
“and concert a plan of military operations 
for the ensuing campaign” (May 25); to 
consider what is proper to be done with 
persons giving intelligence to the enemy 
or supplying them with provisions (June 5). 

June 13, 1776, the Board of War and 
Ordinance, composed of five members, was 
established and Wilson was elected by 
ballot a member of it. On June 14th, an 
important report drafted by Wilson con¬ 
cerning sundry communications from Gen¬ 
eral Washington and General Schuyler was 
presented and favorably acted upon. On 
June 24th, Congress resolved that a commit¬ 
tee composed of a member from each Colony 
be appointed to inquire into the causes of 
miscarriages in Canada, and Wilson was 
named from Pennsylvania. Then came the 
Declaration of Independence. It is im¬ 
possible in this brief sketch further to 
detail Wilson’s services in that matter. 1 
Following the Declaration, Wilson in 1776 
appears as a member of many other com¬ 
mittees, among them: to settle a cartel for 
exchange of prisoners (July 9); to cir¬ 
cumvent a conspiracy to liberate prisoners 
in Philadelphia (July 11); on memorial 
from Connecticut (July 25); to devise a 
plan for encouraging the Hessians and 
other foreigners employed by the King 
of Great Britain to “quit that iniquitous 
service” (Aug. 9); on plan of foreign treaties 
(Aug. 27). On August 1, the young nation, 
then less than thirty days old, received its 
first instruction in Nationalism from James 
Wilson. The problem was under debate in 


Congress, whether in determining questions 
each colony should have but one vote or 
the voting be according to population or in 
proportion to wealth. Thomas Jefferson, in 
his holographic notes on the debate, records 
that Wilson said: 

“Taxation should be in proportion to 
wealth, but representation should accord 
with the number of free men; that govern¬ 
ment is a collection or result of the wills 
of all. ... It has been said that Con¬ 
gress is a representation of States, not 
of individuals. I say that the objects of 
its care are all the individuals of the states. 
It is strange that annexing the name of 
‘State’ to ten thousand men should give 
them an equal right with forty thousand. 
This must be the effect of magic, not of 
reason. As to those matters which are re¬ 
ferred to Congress, we are not so many States, 
— we are one large state; we lay aside our 
individuality when we come here. The 
Germanic body is a burlesque on govern¬ 
ment and their practice on any point is a 
sufficient authority and proof that it is 
wrong. The greatest imperfection in the 
constitution of the Belgic Confederacy is 
their voting by provinces. The interest of 
the whole is constantly sacrificed to that 
of the small states. The history of the war 
in the reign of Queen Anne sufficiently 
proves this. It is asked: Shall nine colonies 
put it into the power of four to govern them 
as they please? I invert the question and 
ask: Shall two millions of people put it in 
the power of one million to govern them as 
they please? It is pretended too that the 
smaller colonies will be in danger from the 
greater. Speak in honest language and say 
the minority will be in danger from the 
majority, and is there an assembly on earth 
where this dariger may not be equally pre¬ 
tended? The truth is that our proceedings 
will then be consentaneous with the interests 
of the majority, and so they ought to be. 
The probability is much greater that the 
larger states will disagree than that they 
will combine.” 

On September 24, Congress adopted in¬ 
structions for a treaty with the King of 
France, which instructions were drafted by 
Wilson and contained the most minute 
directions on various points, such as: “Press 
this hard, but destroy not the treaty for it,” 
etc., etc. Other committees: concerning 


1 Vide pp. 6-9. 






JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


103 


negroes taken by vessels of war (Oct. 14); 
to devise ways and means for supplying the 
treasury with funds (Oct. 14); concerning 
raising of eight battalions of troops in Mary¬ 
land (Oct. 23); to recover despatches stolen 
from General Washington (Oct. 29); “to 
prepare effectual plan for suppressing inter¬ 
nal enemies of America and preventing com¬ 
munication of intelligence to our other 
enemies” (Oct. 31); concerning the raising 
of troops in the State of Massachusetts Bay 
(Nov. 9); chairman of a committee of five 
“with full power to devise and execute 
measures for effectually reenforcing General 
Washington and obstructing the progress 
of General Howe’s army” (Nov. 23); to 
prepare a translation into the German 
language of Great Britain’s treaty with the 
Court of Hesse and to pursue means the most 
effectual for communicating to the Hessians 
the said treaty (Nov. 27); on communi¬ 
cations from General Washington and other 
Generals (Dec. 20); “to take into consider¬ 
ation the state of the army” (Dec. 26); “to 
prepare a circular letter to the several United 
States, explaining the reasons which induced 
Congress to enlarge the powers of General 
Washington, and requesting them to co¬ 
operate with him and give him all the aid in 
their power” (Dec. 28). 

Wilson also served on numerous com¬ 
mittees hearing admiralty appeals. Jef¬ 
ferson records in his notes that in the latter 
part of July when the proportion or quota 
of money which each State should furnish 
to the common treasury was under - con¬ 
sideration, an amendment had been proposed 
that two slaves should be counted as one 
freeman, whereupon Wilson said: 

“Slaves occupy the places of freemen and 
eat their food. Dismiss your slaves and 
freemen will take their places. It is our 
duty to lay every discouragement on the im¬ 
portation of slaves: but this amendment 
would give the jus trium liberorum to him 
who would import slaves.” 

The year 1777 opened with no relaxation 
of Wilson’s activities; no man was even 
approaching him in the amount or value 


of work done. His versatility was only 
equaled by his application and attention to 
detail. Reports from his pen were being 
laid before Congress in rapid succession; he 
was not only attending to duties there, but 
he was often away, hurrying from point to 
point; now negotiating in the then far West 
with the Indians whose friendship was so 
essential to the cause of American independ¬ 
ence, now conferring in camp with the Revo¬ 
lutionary generals on ways and means the 
most effective to bring the war to a success¬ 
ful conclusion; yet committee work con¬ 
tinued to be thrust upon him. On January 
30, 1777, Congress, finding it inconvenient 
to appoint a committee each time one of the 
many and rapidly increasing admiralty ap¬ 
peals was to be heard, determined upon a 
standing committee of five members “to 
hear and determine” all appeals from “the 
courts of admiralty in the respective states,” 
and directed that the several appeals, when 
lodged with the .secretary of Congress, “be 
by him delivered to them for their final de¬ 
termination.” Wilson was elected the chair¬ 
man of this committee, which was afterwards 
known as “the Committee of Appeals,* and 
thus became the presiding officer of the first 
supreme Federal Court of Appeals having a 
semblance of permanency, and from which 
ultimately developed the Supreme Court of 
the United States. On May 8, 1777, the 
committee in the interim having been en¬ 
larged, Congress, declaring that “the stand¬ 
ing committee for hearing and determining 
appeals is too numerous,” resolved that “the 
said committee be discharged and that a new 
committee of five be appointed, they, or any 
three of them, to hear and determine upon 
appeals brought to Congress.” Of this new 
Court of Appeals, James Wilson was also 
elected the presiding officer. 

Other committee work continued to be 
thrust upon Wilson, although he was also 
one of five members of the Board of War, as 
well as on other important standing com¬ 
mittees. A few of the new committees to 
which he was appointed during 1777 are as 





104 


THE GREEN BAG 


follows: on letter from the president of the 
North Carolina Convention and the memorial 
from it (Feb. 4); on communication from the 
Governor of Connecticut in re the four New 
England states (Feb. 5); on conferences with 
General Gates and General Green (March 21); 
as to sundry Pennsylvania matters (March 
26); on steps for opposing the enemy’s at¬ 
tempt to penetrate through New Jersey (Apr. 
9); on ways and means to aid the recruiting 
service and prevent abuses therein (Apr. 12); 
“ on rewards for destroying the enemy’s ships 
of war ” (Apr. 14); on “suppressing the spirit 
of Toryism” in Massachusetts (Apr. 17); on 
“ways and means for speedily reenforcing 
General Washington’s army” (Apr. 23); “to 
prepare an address to the inhabitants of the 
thirteen United States on the present situa¬ 
tion of public affairs” (Apr. 30) —this was 
a committee of three of which Wilson was 
chairman, as he was of numerous other com¬ 
mittees; Wilson, a committee of one, on the 
memorial of the Commissary General (May 
22); to confer with the Pennsylvania author¬ 
ities concerning complaints from the Indians 
(May 23); on miscellaneous matters (June 
28); to take into consideration the state of 
Georgia (July 25); to examine certain corre¬ 
spondence of the committee on secret corre¬ 
spondence (Aug. 1); to consider the state of 
affairs in the Northern Department (Aug. 2); 
on memorial from John Jay and Gouvemeur 
Morris (Aug. 8); on communication from 
General Washington and the memorial of 
the general officers, Wilson chairman (Aug. 
11); to define the powers of the Inspector 
General of ordnance and military manufac- 
turies, Wilson chairman (Aug. 11). 

During August, an earnest effort was made 
by and on behalf of the former Proprietory 
Governor of Pennsylvania, “John Penn, 
Esq.,” as he is referred to in the Journal of 
Congress, to prevent his removal to Virginia, 
as directed by Congress, and he made a per¬ 
sonal appeal by letter to be admitted to 
parole, and this Wilson successfully opposed. 
Other committee appointments were: to 
take into consideration the state of the West¬ 


ern frontiers and the Northern Department 
(Aug. 16); to consider the state of South 
Carolina and Georgia (Aug. 21); on com¬ 
munication from the Governor of Connecticut 
(Sept. 8), 

Wilson’s last act during September, 1777, 
so far as recorded in the Journal of Congress, 
was to record his vote on September n, in 
favor of a resolution, which Congress adopted, 
to import twenty thousand Bibles from Hol¬ 
land, Scotland, and elsewhere, into the dif¬ 
ferent states of the Union. 

Three days later, September 14, 1777, the 
relentless arm of an unpatriotic party ma¬ 
chine, reaching out from Pennsylvania, de¬ 
prived the young nation of the services of 
its ablest champion in Congress, striking 
down James Wilson in the full vigor of his 
valiant fight for American liberty, independ¬ 
ence, and nationality. It was a blow aimed 
at the growing prestige of the young Penn¬ 
sylvanian, who, in addition to his labors in 
Congress, had voiced an irreconcilable oppo¬ 
sition to the miserable makeshift of a Con¬ 
stitution, without counterchecks or balances, 
which had been adopted by Pennsylvania in 
1776, and in the framing of which Wilson 
had had no part. It was a blow which was 
intended to destroy one whose growing pop¬ 
ularity and influence meant the eventual 
overthrow of those in Pennsylvania who 
otherwise considered themselves sufficiently 
entrenched in power under the Constitution 
of ’76; but it was a blow which struck the 
nation — a blow from which, perhaps, it 
could never have recovered had not Wilson, 
before his removal, succeeded in leading 
Congress into bestowing almost dictatorial 
powers upon Washington. With Wilson 
gone from Congress and the reorganization 
of the Board of War shortly afterwards, 
lack of harmony soon developed between the 
civil authorities and the military, and the 
friction continued until July 31, 1781; when 
James Wilson was appealed to by Congress 
to go to Washington’s headquarters with 
Robert Morris, then the Superintendent of 
Finance, and Richard Peters, of the Board of 




JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


l°5 


War, “with a view to bringing the military 
into a better understanding with the civil 
administration.” 

The faction in control of the Pennsylvania 
Assembly which superseded Wilson was the 
same which had drafted the instructions to 
him and the other Pennsylvania delegates in 
Congress in November, 1775, directing oppo¬ 
sition to independence. The effort to knife 
Wilson had long been in contemplation. His 
friend, Colonel Thomas Smith, afterwards a 
Pennsylvania member of Congress and sub¬ 
sequently a Justice of the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania, writing concerning Wilson to 
a mutual friend, General Arthur St. Clair, on 
August 3, 1776, said: 

“He has enemies — created, I sincerely 
believe, by his superior talent. Their malice 
has hitherto been impotent, but they are 
such industrious, undermining, detracting 
rascals, that I hardly think they will rest 
until they have got him out, and a ready 
tool in his place.” 

Six months later, on January 31, 1777, 
Wilson’s client and close friend, Robert 
Morris, the “Financier of the Revolution,” 
wrote him: 

“ I am told our Assembly do not intend you 
shall be in the new list of delegates. ... I 
well know that the honesty, merit, and abil¬ 
ity which you possess in so eminent a degree, 
would not be sufficient pleas against the pre¬ 
vious determination of a strong party, for 
that, I am told, is the case. However, you 
will enjoy your family and friends at home, 
if you are deprived of the opportunity of 
continuing those services to your country, 
which she so much needs, and which, if I mis¬ 
take not, she will feel the want of until better 
men, in better times, shall call you forth again” 

The party in power did act, and on Feb¬ 
ruary 5th elected new delegates superseding 
Wilson and other signers of the Declaration 
of Independence, including George Clymer, 
Benjamin Rush, George Ross; and John 
Morton. On February 19th, Wilson wrote 
his friend, General St. Clair, who, like him¬ 
self, had come from Scotland and between 
whom there was a close bond of sympathy : 

“You have probably heard that I am re¬ 
moved from the delegation of Pennsylvania. 


I retire without disgust, and with the con¬ 
scious reflection of having done my duty to 
the public and to the state which I repre¬ 
sented. ... I am still hurried as much as 
ever. ... I shall have more leisure by and by.” 

Wilson had written St. Clair in July, 
shortly before the attempt was made to 
keep “John Penn, Esq.,” and his Tory Chief 
Justice from banishment: 

“As to the politics of Pennsylvania,they 
are not in the situation I could wish. If a 
regular system was formed between General 
Howe and the friends of our Constitution, 
[the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776], his 
motions could not have been better timed.” 

And Washington declared: 

“The disaffection in Pennsylvania . . . 
is much beyond anything you have con¬ 
ceived, and the depression of the people of 
this state [New Jersey] render a strong sup¬ 
port necessary to prevent a systematical 
submission.” 

The force of public opinion among the 
people of Pennsylvania, however, was such 
that two of those who had been elected de¬ 
clined to serve, and on February 226., Wilson, 
with George Clymer, was again returned to 
Congress. The then dominant party in 
Pennsylvania bided its time, and seven 
months later, on September 14, 1777, as 
stated above, superseded Wilson in Con¬ 
gress, and for more than five years the nation 
was without his services there. This act, 
the more the situation becomes known, will 
serve to deepen the stain which Wilson’s 
removal placed upon those responsible for 
it, and its consequences, measured by what 
the nation lost, it is not possible even to 
estimate. Dr. Benjamin Rush, who served 
in Congress with Wilson, records of him: 

“ He was a profound and accurate scholar. 
He spoke often in Congress, and his elo¬ 
quence was of the most commanding kind. 
He reasoned, declaimed, and persuaded, 
according to the circumstances, with equal 
effect. His mind, while he spoke, was one 
blaze of light. Not a word ever fell from 
his lips out of time or out of place, nor 
could a word be taken from or added to his 
speeches without injuring them. He ren¬ 
dered great and essential services to his 
country in every stage of the Revolution.” 






THE GREEN BAG 


106 


Alexander Graydon says of him in his 
Memoirs: 

“He never failed to throw the strongest 
light on his subjects, and seemed rather to 
flash than elicit conviction syllogistically. 
He produced greater orations than any other 
man I have ever heard.” 

Wilson could not have been blind to the 
value of his services, and must have been 
deeply chagrined at the thwarting of his 
activities in Congress. He removed to An¬ 
napolis, Maryland, where he devoted him¬ 
self to practice, but yielding to the importun¬ 
ities of friends, he returned after a year and 
took up his permanent residence in Phila¬ 
delphia. 

He at once threw himself with the vigor 
and impetuosity of youth into active prac¬ 
tice, at the same time rendering valiant 
service wherever possible to the cause of 
republican liberty in state and nation. Wil¬ 
liam Rawle, the elder, a leader of “the old 
Bar,” who had declined a proffer of the 
attorney-generalship of the United States 
at the hands of Washington, and whose 
great grandson, former President of the 
American Bar Association, Francis Rawle, 
had so prominent a part in arranging the 
1906 Wilson Memorial services, in a brief 
memoir of “the elder Bar” delivered before 
the Bar of Philadelphia in 1824, said: 

“Few of those now present can recollect 
W T ilson in the splendor of his talents and the 
fullness of his practice. Classically edu¬ 
cated, .... his subsequent success in the 
narrow circle of country courts encouraged 
him to embark in the storm which after the 
departure of the British troops agitated the 
forum of Philadelphia. The adherents to 
the royal cause were the necessary subjects 
of prosecution, and popular prejudice 
seemed to bar the avenues of justice. But 
Wilson and Lewis and George Ross [a 
signer, with Wilson, of the Declaration of 
Independence] never shrunk from such con¬ 
tests, and if their efforts frequently failed, 
it was not from want of pains or fear of 
danger.” 

He had helped to organize the Republican 
Society, which was pledged to unyielding 
opposition to the Pennsylvania constitu¬ 


tion of ’76, indeed to such an extent that its 
members, among whom were the ablest and 
most patriotic of Pennsylvanians, refused to 
accept any state office under that constitu¬ 
tion, as that would compel them to take an 
oath to support its vagaries. Alexander 
Graydon, in his Memoirs, records that it was 
understood to have been principally the 
work of George Bryan, the political leader 
of the party in power, “in conjunction with 
James Cannon,” who was professor of mathe¬ 
matics in the College of Philadelphia, and 
Graydon adds, “it was severely reprobated 
by those who thought checks and balances 
necessary to a legitimate distribution of the 
powers of government.” This man Cannon, 
who had helped to draft the instructions 
against independence to the Pennsylvania 
delegates in Congress in ’75 and ’76, so far 
lost his own balance as to declare in a public 
meeting that “all learning as an artificial 
restraint on the human understanding he 
had done with;” and he advised “our sov¬ 
ereign lords, the people, to choose no lawyers 
or other professional characters called edu¬ 
cated or learned; but to select men unedu¬ 
cated, with unsophisticated understand¬ 
ings;” and he declared that he “should be 
glad to forget the trumper y which had occu¬ 
pied so much of his lif e.” ] Such were some 
of the men who had removed Wilson from 
Congress and whom he was now engaging 
in the bitterest political struggle Pennsyl¬ 
vania has known from that day to the pres¬ 
ent, which is placing it on a very high plane 
of bitterness. Yet these men were not 
Tories, although their narrow vision often led 
them, in their antagonism to Wilson and his 
party, to acts which injured the cause of the 
United States more than any Tory had the 
power to do. In the announcement of the 
Republican Society published in March, 
1779, Wilson declared: 

“While we oppose tyranny from a foreign 
power, we should think ourselves lost to 
every sense of duty and of shame were we 
tamely to acquiesce in a system of govern¬ 
ment which in our opinion will introduce the 
same monster so destructive of humanity 








JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


107 


among ourselves. Such a system we con¬ 
ceive the constitution framed by the late 
convention to be.” 

The relentless fight was waged not only 
during the Revolution, but until Wilson 
triumphantly achieved Pennsylvania’s en¬ 
dorsement of the United States Constitu¬ 
tion in 1787 over the venomous opposition 
of the Bryan-Cannon adherents, and with 
his own hand wrote a new constitution for 
Pennsylvania, which was adopted by the 
people in 1790. In 1779 the Bryan faction 
realized the growing strength of Wilson’s 
opposition- and determined to break his in¬ 
fluence, if possible. He had speedily built 
up a large and lucrative practice. The lead¬ 
ing business men and merchants of Phila¬ 
delphia were his clients, among them Robert 
Morris. The emission of bills of credit by 
Congress had inflated the currency, and the 
price of food stuffs rose; the public mind 
was inflamed against Morris and other mer¬ 
chants, and an attempt was made, through 
a committee appointed at a town meeting, 
to regulate the prices at which flour and 
other commodities should be sold. Morris 
and other merchants refused to sell on terms 
dictated to them, and some of the flour was 
used to supply the French fleet. This was 
early in October, 1779, and Wilson was at 
that time Advocate-General for France, as 
well as counsel for Morris. Those opposed 
to him had little difficulty in working up a 
popular sentiment against him, particularly 
as he had but recently been of counsel, for 
Roberts and Carlisle accused of treason, and 
had obtained the acquittal of a number of 
persons tried for that crime. Could any 
mob ever be made to -understand that a man 
might be an ardent patriot and at the same 
time discharge his duty as a lawyer to a 
client unjustly charged with an unpopular 
crime? On the night of October 3, 1779, 
signs were posted throughout Philadelphia, 
threatening Robert Morris, Wilson, and 
others. The following afternoon a mob as¬ 
sembled, armed with muskets and revolvers, 
and after marching for several blocks through 


the city, headed towards Wilson’s residence, 
at the southwest comer of Third and Walnut 
streets. An eyewitness records that Gen¬ 
eral Thomas Mifflin went to the leader in the 
march, and it is said warned him that if they 
attacked Wilson’s house they would be fired 
upon, and “one of the men in the ranks 
struck or pushed him [Mifflin] with his 
musket.” In the meantime a large group 
of Wilson’s friends assembled at his resi¬ 
dence to protect him, including Robert 
Morris and George Clymer, both signers of 
the Declaration of Independence, General 
William Thompson, General Thomas Mifflin, 
Major Francis Nichols, Captain James Camp¬ 
bell, John Lawrence, Samuel C. Morris, and 
a score or more of others. Their only ammu¬ 
nition consisted of some cartridges 'with 
which Clymer and Nichols had filled their 
pockets at the arsenal at Carpenter’s Hall. 
And it is a fact worthy of note that in Wil¬ 
son’s house at this time there was a majority 
of those who eight years later represented 
Pennsylvania in the United States Constitu¬ 
tional Convention. Shortly before the ar¬ 
rival of the mob, an eyewitness who had no 
part in the contest, records that he talked 
with Wilson and that he said that he ‘‘had 
good information he was intended to be 
taken up and that he was determined to de¬ 
fend himself.” The mob finally attacked 
the house, and a fusilade of shots resulted. 
Captain Campbell, of Wilson’s old county, 
Cumberland, and who had been married but 
a week, was killed in the house, and General 
Mifflin was wounded by a bayonet thrust. 
One or two of the mob were also killed and 
many wounded. A disinterested eyewit¬ 
ness, in a personal letter, wrote that ‘‘al¬ 
though the whole of the mob was preparing 
to fire, I think a third single shot was fired 
before any return of fire was made from Mr. 
Wilson’s house.” Finally, led by Major 
Lenox, a part of the First City Troop, which 
had been held in rendezvous for the emer¬ 
gency, galloped up and charged the mob, 
dispersing it after the front door had been 
battered in. Had it not been for this rescue, 




io8 


THE GREEN BAG 


as a modem Pennsylvania historian [Stone] so 
truly declares, “the soil of Philadelphia would 
have been stained with the blood of three 
signers of the Declaration of Independence.” 
It was this same organization, still contain¬ 
ing the best blood of Philadelphia, which 
served as a guard of honor to Wilson’s re¬ 
mains at the time of their recent re-inter¬ 
ment in Philadelphia, and which since 
Washington’s day guards the person of the 
President of the United States when visiting 
Philadelphia. The controlling faction in 
Pennsylvania promptly issued, on October 
6, 1779, a proclamation, declaring inter alia: 

“The undue countenance and encourage¬ 
ment which has been shown to persons dis¬ 
affected to the liberty and independence of 
America by some whose rank and character 
in other respects gave weight to their con¬ 
duct, has been the principal cause of the 
present commotion. . . . We . . . require 
all those who marched down from the 
Common in hostile array to the house of 
James Wilson, Esq., and also all those who 
had previously assembled in the said house 
with arms or otherwise immediately to sur¬ 
render themselves to . . . some justice of 
the peace, who is directed to commit them to 
prison, there to remain until examination 
can be had.” 

In response to this extraordinary procla¬ 
mation, Wilson, who had been defending his 
life in his own house — his castle — and the 
other men with him, boldly appeared before 
their enemies in the Supreme Executive 
Council, which had issued the proclamation, 
—and were held in bail for trial in such 
modest sums as £10,000 for Wilson, £20,000 
for his brother-in-law, £10,000 for Richard 
Peters, later a member of the Board of War, 
and afterwards the distinguished United 
States judge, etc., etc. Some embarrass¬ 
ment was caused when Colonel Gressel, of 
the* Continental Army, appeared, but the 
Council avoided it by declaring that “he 
had used his influence to prevent bloodshed,” 
and allowed him to go without bail, with the 
request that he attend later on “as evi¬ 
dence.” These farcical proceedings were 
finally ended by an act of amnesty to all con¬ 
cerned, passed March 13, 1780, by the same 


body which a few months before had remon¬ 
strated concerning Washington’s military 
plans. The curtain, however, was not rung 
down until the president of the Supreme 
Executive Council had secured an appropri¬ 
ation of £360 to replace a sword hanger 
which he had lost at the time of the riot, for 
it seems that he had appeared on the scene. 

So ended this criminal effort permanently 
“to remove ” James Wilson from the scene of 
his worldly activities. “But,” as is recorded 
in Sanderson’s “ Lives of the Signers of 
the Declaration of Independence,” “like the 
mammoth of the lakes, he opposed a daunt¬ 
less front to the storm and shook off the 
shafts that were hurled for his destruction.” 

During the interim of five years when Wil¬ 
son was not in Congress, he performed an 
inestimable service to the cause of American 
independence by maintaining the closest re¬ 
lations with America’s great ally, France. 
The minister plenipotentiary of Louis XVI, 
M. Gerard, on September 15, 1779, formally 
notified Congress that he had constituted 
James' Wilson Advocate-General of the 
French nation, “in order that he may be 
charged with all the causes and matters rela¬ 
tive to navigation and commerce.” The 
commission issued to Wilson on June 5, 
1779, the appointment, having been made on 
that date, recites: 

“The daily discussions which arise in the 
different parts of United America, relative 
to commerce and navigation, and the estab¬ 
lishment of fixed regulations on those sub¬ 
jects, forming an object of great labor and 
importance, which can only be confided to a 
person versed in the laws, and internal ad¬ 
ministration of America, as well as in the 
rights of man, and the general usages of 
commerce; and the experience and talents, 
of which Mr. James Wilson has afforded so 
many brilliant proofs, making him worthy of 
this nomination, we hereby appoint and con¬ 
stitute him, subject to the good pleasure of 
the King, and until his decision be known, 
Advocate-General of the French nation, in 
the thirteen United States.” 

This commission was duly confirmed by 
the King of France on February 18, 1781, 
“in consideration of the zeal and attach- 






JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


ment which he had on various occasions 
shown towards the subjects of his Majesty.” 
The arduous duties of the office demanded 
close attention, and much study and re¬ 
search were necessary. “I fancy myself,” 
said Wilson, ‘‘in the situation of a planter 
who undertakes to settle and cultivate a 
farm in the woods where there has not been 
one tree cut down nor a single improvement 
made.” By the treaty between the Ameri¬ 
can government and France, which Wilson 
had played so important a part in initiating, 
commercial relations and a consular system 
were to be established, and it devolved upon 
Wilson early in 1780 to draft the agreement 
on behalf of France. In doing so, he out¬ 
lined the jurisdiction and procedure of courts 
in international commercial causes, as well 
as an elaborate consular system, which later 
became the basis for that of the United 
States. Wilson’s preparations for these 
duties were referred to in a letter to John 
Holker, then the Counsel-General for France, 
in which Wilson said : 

‘ ‘ A close study of the laws of England and 
of this country for upwards of thirteen years, 
and an extensive practice during the greatest 
part of that period, entitle me to say that I 
am not altogether unacquainted with them. 
I have given attention to the laws of nations. 
Since I have been honored with the nomi¬ 
nation to be Advocate-General, I have 
directed my studies to the laws and ordi¬ 
nances of France; but I am very deficient in 
the knowledge of them. Nothing but in¬ 
tense application, for a considerable time, 
can make me so much master of them as to 
do justice to the office, or to derive repu¬ 
tation from it to myself. As the trade of 
France with the United States shall in¬ 
crease, the number of processes, in which the 
kingdom will be interested, and of cases, in 
which law opinions must be given, will in¬ 
crease in proportion. To give a safe opinion 
upon any particular point, however simple 
or detached it may appear, requires a gen¬ 
eral knowledge of the laws from which it 
ought to be deduced.” 

Some difficulty subsequently arose con¬ 
cerning Wilson’s compensation, and he 
wrote M. Gerard declining a proposition 
which had been submitted, saying: 


109 

‘‘It would in other respects reduce me to 
a degree of dependence to which I will not 
submit. You know my sentiment from the 
beginning was that my salary and my com¬ 
mission should be dependent only on the 
King.” 

Finally, after a long correspondence, the 
Duke de Luzerne informed Wilson, in April 
1782, that it was not the intention of the 
King to attach an annual salary to the office 
of Advocate-General, although this was a 
condition of the agreement originally made 
with the French minister. Instantly Wil¬ 
son’s spirit of patriotism was aroused, and, 
although notifying the French minister that 
he would not have accepted the office except 
upon the terms that a salary be annexed, he 
added: 

‘‘But, sir, I am a citizen of the United 
States, and feel what I owe to France. 
While the King is making such generous and 
such expensive efforts in behalf of my coun¬ 
try, every service of which my situation and 
circumstances will admit is due to him. 
With the greatest cheerfulness, therefore, I 
will, during the war, give my best service and 
assistance, in the line of my profession and 
practice, concerning such matters as the 
ministers and consuls of France will do me 
the honor of laying before me.” 

‘‘Finally,” as Wilson’s biographer, in 
Sanderson’s “ Lives of the Signers,” with bit- 
ing.sarcasm remarks, when writing in 1824, 
‘‘after several years of labor, Mr. Wilson re¬ 
ceived from his most Christian Majesty, in 
November, 1783, the princely remuneration 
of — ten thousand livres;” yet Wilson had 
the conscious satisfaction of knowing, which 
to a man of his patriotism and character was 
worth more than dollars and cents, that he 
had fulfilled a mission which largely helped 
to maintain throughout the Revolution the 
close bond of friendship between the United 
States and France, so essential to the former; 
for without France’s cordial friendship those 
‘‘enemies from within,” the Tory party, 
might have triumphed, even though the 
British could not by force of arms. 

(To be continued.) 

Philadelphia, Pa., January, 1907. 







I. THE DISINTERMENT AT ETMNGTON 

2 . BODY LYING IN STATE 3 . CITY TROOP AWAITING BODY 

4 . PROCESSION LED BY CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER 5 . BANNERS OF THE SONS OF THE REVOLUTION 


6 . THE BURIAL 












The Green Bag 


Vol. XIX. No. 3 BOSTON March, 1907 


JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 1 

By Lucien Hugh Alexander 
PART III 


D EVOTION to private practice and 
service as Advocate General for 
France by no means occupied all of Wilson’s 
energies during the years immediately fol¬ 
lowing his retirement from Congress in 1777. 
In 1773 he had been elected Professor of 
English Literature in the College of Phila¬ 
delphia, afterwards the University of 
Pennsylvania, and he held this chair until 
1779, when he became a trustee of the 
University. As such he continued to serve 
during the remainder of his life, with such 
associates as Benjamin Franklin, Governor 
Thomas Mifflin, Bishop White, and Francis 
Hopkinson. During a period of ten years 
he fought vigorously in the forum of the 
law for the legal rights of the institution, 
for in 1779 an attempt was made by the 
party in power in Pennsylvania to confiscate 
its estates and to amend and alter the 
charter. Wilson was eventually successful, 
and secured the adoption of an act in 1789, 
branding the attempt to rob the University 
of her rights and privileges as “repugnant 
to justice, a violation of the Constitution 
of this Commonwealth and dangerous in its 
precedent to all incorporated bodies.” This 
victory, due entirely to Wilson’s superior 
reasoning powers, was won on the same line 
of argument which nearly a third of a 
century later enabled Webster to win the 
Dartmouth College case. 

Commencing in 1779 Wilson maintained 
an active correspondence, often in cipher, 
with the American Commissioners to France, 
and, among his other activities, devoted 


1 Continued from the February Number. 


himself to a study of finance. He was in 
search of a remedy for the instability of 
the currency which had resulted from the 
emission by Congress of millions in paper 
money, with which to pay the troops and 
carry on the war. He became convinced 
that a national bank was a necessity, and 
a manuscript copy of a plan for such a 
bank, dated January 25th, 1780, is among 
the Wilsonia in the archives of the His¬ 
torical Society of Pennsylvania, as also 
extensive notes and “Observations on 
Finance.” Among these papers is a “plan 
for establishing the Bank of the United 
States,” dated May 26th, 1781, also various 
papers concerning the Bank of North 
America, and a draft of a “Petition for a 
Second Bank.” Again we find notes “on 
the case of the two banks,” as well as others 
entitled “Considerations on the Bank,” and 
“Case of the bank and remarks concerning 
banks and banking,” also on “Progression 
of Society and improvement in the United 
States and Pennsylvania, particularly with 
reference to public credit and bank credit,” 
etc. 

He was closely associated with Robert 
Morris in organizing the Bank of North 
America, of which he was appointed a 
Director by Congress on December 31, 
1781, during the period he was not a dele¬ 
gate. He became counsel for the bank, as 
he already was for Morris. Ever after in 
his speeches, when questions of finance were 
under discussion, he was an earnest advo¬ 
cate of a sound currency and against the 
repudiation of the obligations of state or 
nation. Indeed, he became an authority in 








138 


THE GREEN BAG 


finance, as he was on so many other subjects, 
and as soon as he was returned to Congress, 
January, 1783, proposed the plan of general 
taxation, which was adopted February 12, 
1783. His brilliant and unanswerable argu¬ 
ment on the power of the Congress under the 
Articles of Confederation to incorporate 
the Bank of North America is referred to, 
and quoted from at some length by the 
writer, in The North American Review at 
pp. 986-987 of Vol. 183 (Nov., 1906), and 
will not be repeated here. No student of 
Wilson or of the many problems resulting 
from the claims of state rights doctrinaires 
can afford not to read the argument * 1 in 
full. 

James DeWitt Andrews of the New York 
and. Chicago Bars, and editor of the last 
edition of Wilson’s works, 2 says this argu¬ 
ment “stands as a constitutional exposition 
second to no constitutional argument or 
opinion delivered before or since. Indeed 
it not only embraced every ground or argu¬ 
ment which Marshall was called upon to 
treat, but it assumed and defined precisely 
the position which was necessarily taken in 
the Legal Tender decisions.” 

It should be added that Hamilton’s great 
report to Washington — Hamilton’s chief 
claim to fame — of February 23, 1791, on 
finance, was founded on this argument by 
Wilson, and it is possible that the historian 
of the future will be able to trace an even 
closer connection on the part of Wilson 
with that powerful document. However 
this may be, all that can now be said is 
that a manuscript copy of Hamilton’s 
report, forty-six pages in length, is among 
the Wilson papers in the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania. 

During this time Wilson’s party in Penn¬ 
sylvania was gradually but surely over¬ 
coming that of George Bryan and the other 
adherents to the Pennsylvania constitution 
of 1776. On May 23, 1782, Wilson was 
unanimously elected by the Supreme Execu¬ 

1 See Wilson’s Works (Andrews’ Edition), Vol. 

1 , pp. 549-577- 

* Callaghan & Co., Chicago, 1896 . 


tive Council, Brigadier-General of the 
militia. Although not in Congress, he was 
maintaining an active interest in national 
affairs and exerting every energy on behalf 
of the colonies in the bitter conflict with 
the mother country. How active we may 
judge from the fact that it was to him 
General Arthur St. Clair wrote from “Head¬ 
quarters, October 19, 1781,” congratulating 
him (Wilson) on the surrender of Cornwallis 
at Yorktown. Said St. Clair: 

“ I was lucky enough to get up in time to 
take my command, which is no less than 
the whole American troops, and to have 
been in the trenches during the operations. 
I most heartily congratulate you upon this 
event which cannot fail to have the most 
beneficial consequence, and reflect great 
lustre upon our arms.” 

In 1781 Pennsylvania sought Wilson’s 
services as counsel in the contest with 
Connecticut over the latter’s claims to the 
lands of the “Wyoming settlement,” and a 
commission was issued to him under the 
Great Seal of the state. The case was won 
in December, 1782, before an arbitration 
court, appointed by Congress, sitting at 
Trenton, as a result of Wilson’s skillful 
handling. Wilson’s brief is still preserved. 
In 1784 an attempt was made by Connecti¬ 
cut to re-open the contest and the then 
President of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Execu¬ 
tive Council, John Dickinson, writing the 
Pennsylvania delegates in Congress, referred 
to Wilson’s “professional knowledge and 
laborious preparation for the late trial,” at 
the same time asserting that the attempts 
of Connecticut to re-open the case “are 
very extraordinary and are to be opposed 
with the most persevering vigilance.” The 
matter dragging, Wilson then in Congress, 
having taken his seat January ' 2, 1783, 
reported to President Dickinson, on Febru¬ 
ary 26, 1785: 

“The controversy respecting the settle¬ 
ments at Wyoming depends before Congress 
in a very disadvantageous state of suspense. 

I think that both the interests and the 
honor of Pennsylvania require that a 
speedy and explicit decision be had upon 






JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


139 


the complaints and representations which 
have been made against her.” 

Finally, Wilson was able to report a 
complete victory for Pennsylvania. We 
also find him informing President Dickinson 
in 1785 that “in some conversation I have 
had with Governor Clinton [of New York], 
the actual running and marking a line 
between Pennsylvania and New York has 
appeared to us to be a measure of much 
importance to both states and which in the 
present juncture may be easily accom¬ 
plished,”— and it was, as a result of 
Wilson’s initiative. 

He was also called upon to assist the 
Attorney General of Pennsylvania in several 
other cases of importance. One of them, 
Commonwealth versus Matlack, indicated 
that political conditions had decidedly 
changed in Pennsylvania, for Matlack had 
been a member of and the Secretary of the 
Supreme Executive Council at the time of 
the issuance of the proclamation in the 
matter of the attack on Wilson’s house in 
1777, which disturbance is known in Penn¬ 
sylvania history as the “ Fort Wilson Riot.” 1 
On June 2, 1784, the Supreme Executive 
Council adopted a resolution that Wilson 
be requested to assist the Attorney General 
in the de Longchamps case and it appearing 
that he had not acted, another resolution 
to the same effect was adopted on June 25, 
1784, and this double effort to secure his 
aid proved successful. James Wilson’s far- 
seeing mind, however, was not confined to 
intellectual activities alone, for on October 
31, 1783, he submitted a proposal to the 
Assembly of Pennsylvania to build ‘‘a 
bridge over the river Delaware at the Falls 
of Trenton,” which was favorably received. 

In 1784 he was not a delegate to the 
Congress, but in that year he published his 
celebrated address to the citizens of Phila¬ 
delphia. He was again returned to Con¬ 
gress in April, 1785, also in November, 1785, 
and was continued by successive re-elections 
until the adoption of the United States 


Constitution. Space will not permit of an 
examination of Wilson’s many and invalu¬ 
able services in Congress during the trying 
years following the treaty of peace with 
Great Britain, during which time the lack 
of cohesive force in the Articles of Con¬ 
federation became so evident and the flame 
of nationality burned so low. But Wilson, 
realizing the necessity for one great nation 
on the western shores of the Atlantic, never 
lost the faith and courage that was within 
him. When Robert Morris, angered by the 
attacks made upon him, resigned as Super¬ 
intendent of Finance, it was Wilson who 
pleaded with him and succeeded in getting 
him to remain in charge of this branch of 
the public service, then, as now, so vital to 
the public welfare. 

The Articles of Confederation had been 
agreed to by Congress and ratified by the 
states after Wilson’s removal in 1777, 1 
and they lacked that power to make a 
nation which was characteristic of every 
national document which received Wilson’s 
touch. We may well imagine, from all we 
know of Wilson, that had he shaped the 
Articles of Confederation into final form, 
they would not have possessed the inherent 
weaknesses they did. Finally, the Consti¬ 
tutional Convention was decided upon, and 
the year 1787 found James Wilson a dele¬ 
gate from Pennsylvania, and fully equipped 
by learning, experience, temperament, and 
personal influence for the great work that 
lay before him and the other creative 
intellects of the time — the making of the 
Constitution of the United States, to the 
end that republican government might be 
firmly established in America, and a sure 
foundation built for the mighty nation then 
slumbering in embryo. No man in America 
had greater forensic powers than Wilson, 
save perhaps Patrick Henry, who, imbued 
with local and bereft of national pride, had 
declined to serve as a Virginia delegate to 
the Constitutional Convention. Combined 
with Wilson’s powers of oratory, there was 


1 Vide pp. 106-107 supra. 


1 Vide p. 104 supra . 







140 


THE GREEN BAG 


organized knowledge based not only upon 
deep philosophic study and profound his¬ 
torical research, but upon vast practical 
experience in the affairs of government. 

No one can read Madison’s, King’s, or 
Yates’ minutes of the Convention, without ( 
being impressed by the fact that Wilson’s 
intellect, to a greater extent than that of 
any other man’s, dominated the proceedings 
of the Convention. The great principles 
of republican government, which were finally 
crystallized into form in the Constitution, 
he held constantly as beacon lights before 
the members of the Convention. He was 
on his feet more frequently than any other 
delegate, excepting one, speaking, in all, 
one hundred and sixty-eight times, yet the 
contemporaneous records of the proceedings 
show that he never rose for the mere sake 
of talking, but only when it was necessary 
to give direction to the trend of thought. 
When views were being expressed consonant 
with his theories of government, and there 
seemed no doubt but that the Convention 
was in accord therewith, he would sit a 
silent spectator, intently watching, but 
always on guard against a departure from 
correct principles, and ever ready to battle 
for them at the slightest intimation of a 
variance therefrom. In the great battles 
of the Convention, he was ever in the fore¬ 
front, contending with all the powers at 
his disposal for the nation’s life. Space will 
not permit of more than a cursory glance at 
his services in the Convention. 1 In the 
index to The Documentary History of the 
Constitution of the United States, as recently 
published by the government, seven and a 
half columns of fine print are taken up in 
merely indicating the topics he discussed. 
However, a brief summary of his work in 
the Convention will not be out of place: 

He desired the executive, legislative, and 
judicial departments to be independent of 
each other. He wished to guard the 

1 Those interested are referred to McLaughlin’s 
able analysis, entitled ‘‘James Wilson and the 
the Constitution,” Polit. Sc. Qr., March, 1897. 


general government against the encroach¬ 
ments of the states, yet he desired the 
preservation of the state governments, and 
stood like a rock against all those who 
would have abolished them, declaring on 
June 19, according to the minutes of Chief 
Justice Robert Yates of New York: 

“ I am (to borrow a sea phrase) for taking 
a new departure, and wish to consider in 
what direction we sail, and what may be 
the end of the voyage. I am for a national 
government, though the idea of federal is, 
in my view, the same. With me it is not 
a desirable object to annihilate the state 
governments, and here I differ from 
the honorable gentleman from New York 
[Hamilton], In all extensive empires a 
subdivision of power is necessary. Persia, 
Turkey, and Rome under its emperors, are 
examples in point. These, although despots, 
found it necessary. A general govern¬ 
ment, over a great extent of territory, must 
in a few years make subordinate jurisdic¬ 
tions. Alfred the Great, that wise legislator, 
made this gradation and the last division, 
on his plan, amounted only to ten terri¬ 
tories.” 

He contrasted the Virginia and New 
Jersey outline plans for the Constitution, 
and brought light out of the darkness. 
He argued that the separation from Great 
Britain did not make the Colonies 
independent of each other, yet he did not 
think the individuality of the states incom¬ 
patible with a general government. He 
proposed that the executive should consist 
of but one person, and advocated the 
election of the President through electors 
elected by the people, as an alternative to 
having him selected by Congress. To the 
latter plan he was unalterably opposed, 
declaring that he “would agree to almost 
any length of time for the service of the 
President, in order to get rid of the depend¬ 
ence which must result” from an election 
by. Congress, and he presented the plan of 
an electoral college as a compromise. He 
objected to an executive council, but urged 
a council to consist of the President and 
the Supreme Court, with a veto power over 
’the acts of the legislative branch, coupled 





JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


14T 


with the proviso that a two-thirds vote in 
the Congress might pass an act over the veto 
of either the President or Court, and a 
three-fourths vote where both were opposed. 
It was his preference that the President 
should be elected by the direct vote of the 
people. He advocated a provision for the 
impeachment of the President, but opposed 
his removal by Congress on application of 
the states, for it was a fixed principle with 
him that the national government derived 
its powers and authority solely from the 
people of the nation, and not from the 
states,—these he considered to be merely 
the artificial creations of the people for the 
purposes of government, —the units into 
which the nation must necessarily be 
divided for purposes of internal police and 
local self-government: 

“The judiciary ought to have an oppor¬ 
tunity of remonstrating against projected 
encroachments on the people, as well as on 
themselves. It has been said that the 
judges, as expositors of the law, would have 
an opportunity of defending their constitu¬ 
tional rights. There was weight in this 
observation; but this power of the judges 
did not go far enough; laws may be unjust, 
may be unwise, may be dangerous, may be 
destructive and yet may not be so uncon¬ 
stitutional as to justify judges in refusing to 
give them effect. Let them have a share 
in the revisionary power and they will have 
an opportunity of taking notice of those 
characters of a law and of counteracting by 
the weight of their opinions the improper 
views of the legislature.” 

He thought the power of the President to 
pardon should exist before conviction. He 
urged the election of senators directly by 
the people, and proposed to divide the Union 
into senatorial districts; he advocated six 
years as the senatorial term; opposed the 
equal vote of the states in the Senate, and 
thought the number of senators should be 
in ratio to the population; he objected to 
state executives filling vacancies in the 
Senate, and disapproved of the Senate being 
united with the President in the power of 
appointment, as well as to its being sepa¬ 
rately convened. He urged the election of 


representatives by the people, and advocated 
proportionate representation of the states 
in Congress; he pointed out that voting by 
states was submitted to originally by the 
Continental Congress “ under a conviction of 
its impropriety, inequality, and injustice.”" 
He advocated the same proporton of 
representation in both houses, and thought 
annual elections of representatives desirable. 
He opposed payment of senators and 
representatives by the states, declaring that 
“ the members of the national government 
should be left as independent as possible 
of the state' governments in all respects.” 
He was against the constitution fixing the 
amount of compensation, asserting that 
“circumstances would change and call for 
a change of amount.” He suggested the 
number of freemen and three-fifths of the 
slaves as the ratio of representation, but 
considered the admission of slaves into the 
ratio a matter of compromise. According 
to Madison he argued thus, as to slaves: 

“Are they admitted as citizens — then 
why are they not admitted on an equality 
with white citizens; are they admitted as 
property — then why is not other property 
admitted into the computation? These 
were difficulties, however, which he thought 
must be over-ruled by the necessity of 
compromise.” 

And in the Pennsylvania Ratifying Con¬ 
vention he argued: 

“After the year 1808, the Congress will 
have power to prohibit such importation 
[i.e. of slaves] notwithstanding the dis¬ 
position of any State to the contrary. I 
consider this as laying a foundation for 
banishing slavery out of this Country; and 
though the period is more distant than I 
could wish, ... it is with much satis- 
’ faction I view this power in the general 
Government, whereby they may lay an 
interdiction on this reproachable trade. 
... It was all that could be obtained. I 
am sorry it was no more; but from this I 
think there is reason to hope that yet a 
few years, and it will be prohibited alto¬ 
gether.” 

He was of opinion that a quorum in 
Congress should not be less than a majority 






142 


THE GREEN BAG 


of the whole. He urged that the journal of 
Congress should be published; and it may¬ 
be pertinent while on this point to remark 
that as a member of the Continental Con¬ 
gress he had been opposed to secret sessions, 
.asserting that the people of the Union had a 
right to know what their deputies were 
■doing. He desired a provision in the 
Constitution, declaring that the contracts 
of the Confederation would be fulfilled, and 
advocated a guarantee to the states of 
republican institutions, and of protection 
from foreign and domestic violence. He 
objected to a prohibition against taxing 
•exports. His professional pride caused him 
to regard a provision in the Constitution 
forbidding ex post facto laws -as wholly 
unnecessary; he declared that “the insertion 
of such a thing, will bring reflections on the 
Constitution and proclaim that we are 
ignorant of the first principles of legislation 
or are constituting a government that will 
be so.” He strongly opposed a proposition 
to allow states to appoint to national 
offices. He doubted if the writ of habeas 
■corpus should ever be suspended, and desired 
an absolute prohibition on the states relative 
to paper money, and a guarantee against laws 
interfering with the obligation of contracts. 

He urged that the territorial rights of the 
United States and of the individual states 
should be left by the Constitution in statu 
quo , asserting that he “knew nothing that 
would cause greater or juster alarm then 
the doctrine that a political society is to be 
tom asunder without its own consent.” 
He demanded a provision that Congress 
should have power to declare the effect 
which judgments obtained in one state 
should have in another, and asserted that 
without such power, each state would be in 
the same position as independent nations 
are. He urged that the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives should be united with the Senate 
in making treaties, declaring that “as 
treaties are to have the operation of laws, 
they ought to have the sanction of the laws 
also.” He objected to a two-thirds vote in 
the Senate on treaties, because it would put 


it “into the power of a minority to control 
the will of a majority,” and showed that, 
in case of an existing'war, “if two-thirds 
was necessary to make peace the minority 
may perpetuate war against the sense of the 
majority.” 

He opposed the appointment of Judges by 
Congress and proposed that the appoint¬ 
ments should be made by the President. 
He urged a national judiciary and argued 
that the admiralty jurisdiction should be 
given to the national government exclu¬ 
sively, “as it related to cases not within 
the jurisdiction of particular states.” He 
desired the Judges to remain in office during 
good behavior and opposed a provision 
permitting their, removal by the President 
on application of the Senate and House of 
Representatives, declaring that “the Judges 
would be in a bad situation if made to 
depend on any gust of faction which might 
prevail in the two branches of our govern¬ 
ment.” He thought unanimity among the 
states unnecessary in order to put the 
new Constitution into operation. Madison 
records that Wilson took occasion early in 
the convention to lead it “by a train of 
observations to the idea of not suffering a 
disposition in the plurality of states to 
confederate anew on better principles, to 
be defeated by the inconsiderate or selfish 
opposition of a few states.” He hoped the 
provision for ratifying would be put on 
such a footing as to admit of such a partial 
union, with a door open for the accession 
of the rest. He desired the new Constitu¬ 
tion to be ratified by a majority vote of the 
people and of the states. According to 
Wilson’s theories, future amendments should 
be adoptable by a majority vote of the 
people, but, on it being moved that no 
amendments should be binding until con¬ 
sented to by all the states, he proposed that 
two-thirds only should be necessary, a/nd 
being defeated in this immediately advocated 
three-fourths as the next best thing attain¬ 
able and secured it. 

After the great principles and much of 
the mechanism of the new government had 









JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


143 


been tentatively agreed upon, a committee 
of five “on detail” was elected by ballot to 
draft the Constitution, and Wilson was 
chosen on this committee, and by some he is 
reputed to have been its chairman. Among 
the most treasured possessions of the 
Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a 
draft for the Constitution in Wilson’s hand¬ 
writing. 

It is not practicable in the limits of this 
■sketch to follow Wilson through the varying 
phases and the shifting scenes of the Con¬ 
stitutional Convention, and we can better 
and in more condensed form catch a glimpse 
of his theories of government by quoting, 
even if but briefly, his own words as 
expressed after the Consitituton was a 
completed whole. Fortunately, Wilson’s 
principal speeches in the Pennsylvania 
Convention, called to consider the question 
of ratifying the Constitution, were recorded 
stenographically, and are accessible in 
Elliot's Debates , and Stone and McMaster’s 
invaluable work, Pennsylvania and the 
Federal Constitution. These speeches by 
Wilson, and one by Chief Justice Thomas 
McKean, who was also a delegate to the 
ratifying convention, were considered of 
such intrinsic value that they were published 
in London in 1792, in a book of one hundred 
and fifty pages, all but fifteen being devoted 
to Wilson’s arguments, sub nomine “com¬ 
mentaries ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 
united states of America, in which are 
unfolded the principles of free government 
'and the superior advantdges of republicanism 
■demonstrated .” 

Wilson’s views are luminous — more 
luminous, it is not too much to say, than 
those of any man who has written or spoken 
since his day; and it is not strange that it 
is so, for he was at the fountain source of our 
nation, and had a broader, deeper, and more 
comprehensive grasp of the principles upon 
which our governmental institutions are 
founded than any of his compatriots. For 
not even Madison, Rufus King, Hamilton 
or Randolph were possessed of as profound 
a knowledge of theories and conditions as 


was Wilson — none of them had been 
trained in such institutions as St. Andrews, 
Glasgow, and Edinburgh, or had had such 
master minds as had Wilson to direct their 
educations; and none had had more practical 
experience in the affairs of government than 
this marvelous man, then at forty-five, in 
the full vigor of his prime. 

It was from the “Commentaries” that 
that discriminating constitutional historian, 
James Bryce, the present British Ambassador 
to America, gained his insight into, Wilson’s 
theories of government, causing him, in his 
great masterpiece, The American Common¬ 
wealth, to declare Wilson to be “in the 
front rank of the political thinkers of his 
age” and “one of the luminaries of the 
time to _ whom subsequent generations of 
Americans have failed to do full justice.” 
Bryce, however, does not stand alone among 
historians in paying high tribute to Wilson; 
Bancroft, Hildreth, Fisk, Cooley, McLaugh¬ 
lin, Hart and a host of others all proclaim 
his greatness. Former President of the 
American Bar Association, Simeon E. Bald¬ 
win, now President of the American His¬ 
torical Association, says of him: 

“ He was the real founder of what' is dis¬ 
tinctive in our American jurisprudence , and 
his arguments for the reasonableness and 
practicability of international arbitration 
were a century ahead of his time.” 

John Marshall Harlan, Senior Justice of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, 
declares that Wilson’s “labors in the cause 
of justice and constitutional liberty were not 
surpassed in value to the country by those 
of anyone who served the public during the 
same period of our history.” 

The late United States Judge, Henry W. 
Blodgett, stated that he “had it direct 
from Stephen A. Douglass that the statutes 
of the First Congress were written by Judge 
Wilson, and that they were so clear that no 
contest had ever arisen on account of any 
ambiguity of their language.” 

Judson Harmon, Attorney General of the 
United States in Grover Cleveland’s Cabinet, 
asserts that “no man of his time better 





144 


THE GREEN BAG 


deserves grateful remembrance than James 
Wilson. ” 

Alton B. Parker, the last candidate of the 
Democracy for the presidency refers to him 
as “the man who laid the corner-stone of 
constitutional interpretation in this country 
upon deep and solid foundations, ” and adds: 

“As the result of his labors and those of 
John Marshall and Joseph Story and their 
associates and successors, there has been 
perfected a system of jurisprudence, which 
is the most original, as it promises to be the 
most imposing monument of our national 
ideas and institutions. ” 

Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, William H. Moody, when the 
Nation’s Attorney General, declared that 
Wilson, “exercised an influence in the 
convention which equaled, if it did not 
surpass, that of any other man,” and that: 

“He sought a government with sufficient 
power to perform the duties of a nation, and 
in constructing it was controlled by a few 
great principles clearly understood and 
tenaciously pursued. Recognizing that the 
ultimate sovereignty rested with the people 
of the United States, he desired a govern¬ 
ment whose powers should proceed directly 
from them and operate directly upon them; 
a government which in truth should be of 
the people, by the people, and for the people. 

. . . He was a believer in democracy and in 
nationalism, — the first man, I believe, in 
all our history who united the two opinions. 

. . . He appreciated the proper relations of 
the two governments, state and national, 
each entrusted with its own supreme powers, 
to each other and to the people who created 
both, and how, through the judiciary, the 
limits upon their powers, imposed by the 
Constitution could be made effective. He 
left the deep impress of his design upon the 
work of the convention. When it was done 
he had mastered its great outlines and was 
ready to expound and defend them. With 
the keen vision of a seer, he discerned that 
the structure of the Government was destined 
for the ages, for vast territories and 
uncounted millions. ” 

With these ringing words of patriotism, 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, Edward D. White, of Louisiana, 
closed his tribute at the Wilson Memorial and 
Interment services: 


“As I stand here, a participant in these 
ceremonies commemorative of the placing of 
all that remains of James Wilson to rest in 
the bosom of his adopted mother, this great 
commonwealth of Pennsylvania, my mind 
turns not to extol his virtues but rather 
lifts itself up to that Wise and All-Merciful 
Ruler who holds in the hollqw of His hands 
the destinies of peoples and nations, with 
the supplication that these ceremonies may 
enkindle in all our hearts a keener purpose 
to preserve and perpetuate the government 
which our fathers gave us. Not a govern¬ 
ment of a great and stolid bureaucracy; not 
a government of infirmity in national power; 
not a government destructive of the rights 
of the states; not a government of the 
sordid few to the detriment of the many, or 
of the many to the destruction of those 
inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property 
upon which our civilization depends. Not 
any or all of these, but the government of 
the Constitution, a government of liberty 
protected by law, which affords the sub¬ 
stantial hope that civil liberty may not pass 
away from the face of the earth. ” 

And now, for more than one hundred 
years, that civil liberty for which Wilson 
strove and struggled, has not only been 
perpetuated on the American Continent, but 
has been extending over the world in pre¬ 
cisely the way Wilson foreshadowed at the 
close of one of his masterful arguments for 
the Constitution in the Pennsylvania Rati¬ 
fying Convention,—that of December n, 
1787: 

“By adopting this system, we shall 
probably lay a foundation for erecting 
temples of liberty, in every part of the 
earth. It has been -thought by many, that 
on the success of the struggle America has 
made for freedom, will depend the exertioils 
of the brave and enlightened of other 
nations. — The advantages resulting from! 
this system will not be confined to the! 
United States; it will draw from Europel 
many worthy characters, who pant for the* 
enjoyment of freedom. It will induce" 
princes, in order to preserve their subjects, 
to restore to them a portion of that liberty 
of which they have for many ages been 
deprived. It will be subservient to the 
great designs of Providence, with regard to 
this globe; the multiplication of mankind, 
their improvement in knowledge, and their 
advancement in happiness. ” 






JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


T 45 


James DeWitt Andrews, chairman of the 
American Bar Association^ Committee on 
Classification of the Law, sums up Wilson’s 
creative work under three heads: 

“ I. Contributions to Jurisprudence Proper: 
He stated the true theory of jurisprudence, 
and enunicated the American conception of 
Law and Right. He showed the necessity 
for a system of legal education, and presented 
an outline or juristic encyclopaedia. 

“II. Contributions to International Law: 
His conceptions of the Law of Nature and 
of the Law of Nations are just and modern; 
his divisions of the subject correct and sci¬ 
entific. ( His views on the exercise of Remon¬ 
strance now obtain, as do his views on Inter¬ 
vention, on Mediation and on Arbitration. 

“III. Contributions to Constitutional Law: 
He published to the world the principles of 
the Declaration twenty-three months prior 
to July 4, 1776, and asserted the uncon¬ 
stitutionality of acts of Parliament over the 
American Colonies. He affirmed that the 
Colonies, by their union, formed a nation, and 
was the first to expound the doctrine of 
inherent national power. He maintained 
that a charter is a contract, and also that a 
legislative grant constitutes a ' contract. 
He expressly upheld the doctrine of national 
expansion. He declared the right of the 
federal government to incorporate national 
banks and asserted its power to make paper 
money a legal tender. 

“Wilson thus anticipated the most impor¬ 
tant measures of the Government and the 
most important decisions of the National 
Supreme Court.” 

But the end is not yet. That profound 
student of our histofy, John Bach McMaster, 
declares: 

“I believe Wilson to be the most learned 
lawyer of his time. As a statesman, he 
was ahead of his generation in foresight. 
Many of the great principles of government 
advocated by him, we, as a nation, are only 
beginning to apply.” 

We should never forget that every great 
decision by John Marshall was foreshadowed 
by James Wilson, the nation-builder. Fif¬ 
teen years before Marshall wrote the opinion 
in Marbury versus Madison declaring a law 
repugnant to the Constitution to be void, 
and thirty years before his equally potent 


decision in McCullough versus Maryland, 
Wilson had clearly enunciated the doctrine. 
On December 1, 1787, in one of his speeches 
in defense of the Constitution, he declared: 

“Under this constitution, the legislature 
may be restrained and kept within its 
prescribed bounds by the interposition of the 
judicial department. This I hope, Sir, to 
explain clearly and satisfactorily. I had 
occasion on a former day to state that the 
power of the constitution was paramount to 
the power of the legislature acting under 
that constituton. For it is possible that 
the legislature, when acting in that capacity, 
may transgress the bounds assigned to it, 
and an act may pass in the usual mode not¬ 
withstanding that transgression; but when 
it comes to be discussed before the judges, 
when they consider its principles, and find 
it to be incompatible with the superior 
powers of the constitution, it is their duty to 
pronounce it void; and judges independent, 
and not obliged to look to every session for 
a continuance of their salaries, will behave 
with intrepidity and refuse to the act the 
sanction of judicial authority. ” 1 

Did space permit, it would be profitable 
to quote at length Wilson’s profound eluci¬ 
dation of the principles of republican 
government, but to do so would require 
many scores of pages. He was determined 
that the American people should have a 
Constitution which would be a true trans¬ 
cript of their national life and place them 
before the world a nation, and not a mere 
confederacy of jarring states. He stood 
against the idea of sovereignty in the 
states and declared that the sovereignty 
was solely in the people. The real battle 
must have been fought in that little “Com¬ 
mittee of Detail,” composed of five members, 
which drafted the Constitution into concrete 
form. The changing of a few words here 
and there would have altered the funda¬ 
mental principles upon which our nation 
now exists. He had his convictions, he 
saw the situation as it existed, and with 
prophetic vision he also saw the future, — 
he knew what the Constitution ought to be, 

1 “ Commentaries on the Constitution” (English 
Edition), p. 12. 





146 


THE GREEN BAG 


he made up his mind what it must be and 
— made the thing happen, crushing oppo¬ 
sition with irresistible force. 

He was the antithesis of such patriots as 
Patrick Henry, who were controlled by 
local interests and narrow considerations of 
policy, and who lacked Wilson’s broad and 
comprehensive grasp of fundamental prin¬ 
ciples. Patrick Henry, in his powerful 
oration against the adoption of the Consti¬ 
tution in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 
with his analytical mind went to the heart 
of the issue, yet his words show the same 
misconception of first principles which con¬ 
trol so many in our day. He asked: 

“What right had they to say, We, the 
people? My political curiosity, exclusive of 
my anxious solicitude for the public wel¬ 
fare, leads me to ask, who authorized them 
to speak the language of We, the people, 
instead of We, the states? States are the 
characteristics and the soul of a confedera¬ 
tion. If the states be not the agents of the 
compact, it must be one great, consolidated, 
national government of all the states. . . . 

“The fate of America may depend upon 
this question. Have they said, We, the 
states? Have they made a proposal of a 
compact between states? If they had, this 
would be a confederation; it is, otherwise, 
most clearly a consolidated government. The 
whole question turns, sir, on that poor 
little thing, the expression, We, the people, 
instead of the states of America.” 1 

How different were Wilson’s views, as 
expressed in the Pennsylvania Ratifying 
Convention. 

“I view the states as made for the People 
as well as by them, and not the People as 
made for the states; the People, therefore, 
have a right, whilst enjoying the undeniable 
powers of society, to form either a general 
government, or state governments, in what 
manner they please; or to accommodate 
them to one another; and by this means 
preserve them all; this, I say, is the inherent 
and unalienable right of the people.” 

Then, after quoting from the Declara¬ 
tion of Independence as an authority, he 
declared: 

1 Wirt’s “Life of Henry,” pp. 267-271. 


“State sovereignty, as it is called, is far 
from being able to support its weight. 
Nothing less than the authority of the 
people could either support it or give it. 
efficacy. . . . My position is, sir, that in 
this country the supreme, absolute, and 
uncontrollable power resides in the people- 
at large; that they have vested certain 
proportions of this power in the state gov¬ 
ernments ; but that the fee-simple con¬ 
tinues, resides, and remains with the body 
of the people.” 

Wilson has also left with us these golden- 
words of wisdom and of warning, contain¬ 
ing an even more trenchant statement of 
his doctrine: 

“ The people of the United States must be 
considered attentively in two very different 
views — as forming one nation, great and 
united; and as forming, at the same time, a 
number of separate states, to that nation 
subordinate, but independent as to their 
own interior government. This very im¬ 
portant distinction must be continually 
before our eyes. If it be properly observed y 
everything will appear regular and propor¬ 
tioned: tf it be neglected, endless confusion 
and intricacy will unavoidably ensue” ' 

Wilson, as a result of his battle for the 
people, was attacked with all the virulence 
of political bitterness. He was called an 
“aristocrat,” “The Caledonian,” “Jimmy,” 
“Jamie,” and, with Thomas McKean, Chief 
Justice of Pennsylvania, was burned in 
effigy at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with this 
inscription “ James de Caledonia” fastened 
to his coat. But at last, triumphing over- 
every obstacle, he was successful in securing 
from the convention, mainly as a result of 
his own abilities, the immortal Constitu¬ 
tion; securing, practically entirely by his 
own efforts, its ratification in Pennsyl¬ 
vania; and securing, very largely as a 
result of his arguments scattered broadcast 
throughout the states, its adoption as the 
fundamental law of the land in 1788. Thus 
did James Wilson achieve his second great 
mission in America. 

(To be concluded) 

Philadelphia, Pa., February, 1907. 
















A DETAIL FROM THE TRUMBULL PAINTING OF THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION 
OF INDEPENDENCE (JAMES WILSON IS THE CENTRAL FIGURE). 










The Green Bag 

Vol. XIX. No. 5 BOSTON May, 1907 


JAMES WILSON — NATION BUILDER 1 

By Lucien Hugh Alexander 

PART IV 


B Y the time the United States Con¬ 
stitution was ratified in 1788, James 
Wilson had triumphed over his political 
enemies and had become the leader of the 
dominant party in Pennsylvania, then the 
most important state in the Union; yet his 
rule was a sway of reason, resulting from 
universal recognition of his abilities as a 
leader of men and moulder of public opinion. 
William Findley, one of his most aggres¬ 
sive opponents in the Pennsylvania rati¬ 
fying convention of 1787, wrote that Wilson 
was considered as the most able politi¬ 
cian in the state.” His commanding in¬ 
fluence is strikingly illustrated by the 
words of the leader of the opposition to the 
ratification of the United States Constitu¬ 
tion, who finding the Pennsylvania conven¬ 
tion, as the result of Wilson’s arguments, 
determined to ratify it, moved that the 
objections of the minority, including a 
series of articles in the nature of amend¬ 
ments, be spread on the records. Wilson, 
opposing, demanded that the motion be 
reduced to writing, whereupon the leader 
of the opposition replied : 

“Indeed, sir, I know so well that if the 
honorable member from the city (Mr. Wil¬ 
son) says the articles shall not, they will 
not be admitted, that I am not disposed 
to take the useless trouble of reducing my 
motion to writing, and, therefore, I with¬ 
draw it.” 

When the Constitution was finally ratified 
by the number of states necessary to put it 
into operation, a great celebration was held 

1 Continued from the March number. 


in Philadelphia, July 4, 1788, which included 
a procession of a character never equalled 
since, with floats representative of the 
various vocations and trades of the people, 
and upon one of which sat the Judges of the 
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. This float, 
as described by Francis Hopkinson, was in 
the form of a large eagle, drawn by six 
horses, and upon it was the Constitution 
framed and fixed on a staff, crowned with 
the cap of liberty, the words THE PEOPLE 
in gold letters being on the staff immedi¬ 
ately under the Constitution. In the pro¬ 
cession each of the thirteen states was rep¬ 
resented by a distinguished citizen, and 
James Wilson personified Pennsylvania. He 
was selected to deliver the oration 1 at Inde¬ 
pendence Hall, and it is said 20,000 people 
assembled to hear him. The oration was 
effervescent with the spirit of the time and 
the exultation resulting from the victory of 
the Constitution and faith and hope in the 
future. With the vision of the seer, he fore¬ 
shadowed the development of America : 

“ The commencement of our government 
has been eminently glorious; let our pro¬ 
gress in every excellence be proportionably 
great. It will — it must be so. What an 
enraptured prospect opens on the United 
States! .... Lowing herds adorn our val¬ 
leys; bleating flocks spread over our hills; 
verdant meadows, enameled pastures, yellow 
harvests, bending orchards, rise in rapid 
succession from east to west. . . . Com¬ 
merce next advances in all her splendid and 
embellished forms. The rivers and lakes 
and seas are crowded with ships. Their 


1 For same in full see Wilson’s Works (Bird 
Wilson edition, 1804) vol. Ill, pp. 299-3x1. 















266 


THE GREEN BAG 


shores are covered with cities. The cities 
are filled with inhabitants. . . . Peace walks 
serene and unalarmed over all the unmo¬ 
lested regions — while liberty, virtue, and 
religion go hand in hand, harmoniously pro¬ 
tecting, enlivening, and exalting all! Happy 
country! May thy happiness be perpetual! ” 

After tracing the rise and fall of govern¬ 
mental institutions from the days of anti¬ 
quity, he exhorted the citizens of the young 
nation to frugality, temperance, and the 
highest civic duty, and painted in a power¬ 
ful word picture the fall of Rome as a warn¬ 
ing to the infant republic. “A progressive 
state,” he asserted, “is necessary to the 
happiness and perfection of man.” He 
abjured the people to protect the ballot and 
conscientiously to discharge their electoral 
duty, declaring: 

“ Of what immense consequence is it then 
that this primal duty should be faithfully 
and skillfully discharged! . . . You will for¬ 
give me, I am sure, for endeavoring to 
impress upon your minds, in the strongest 
manner, the importance of this great duty. 
It is the first concoction in politics. . . . Let 
no one say, that he is but a single citizen, 
and that his ticket will be but one in the 
box. That one ticket may turn the elec¬ 
tion. In battle every soldier should con¬ 
sider the public safety as depending on his 
single arm; at an election every citizen should 
consider the public happiness as depend¬ 
ing on his single vote.” 

It is not strange that it was to a man of 
such mental grasp and moral caliber that 
George Washington, who had learned to 
know and understand Wilson during the 
early years of the Continental Congress, 
should have insisted in 1782 that his nephew 
Bushrod Washington should go for instruc¬ 
tion in the law. Long years after, in 
1822, Bushrod Washington, then a Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
wrote that his father had sent him to 
Philadelphia in the winter of 1781-82 with 
a view to the study of the law, and that 
General Washington, happening to be in 
the city, undertook to superintend the 
necessary arrangements for his establish¬ 


ment; and he adds that although James 
Wilson “required from his students a much 
higher fee than was usually paid to the 
other gentlemen of the law, the General 
unhesitatingly overruled the intention I 
expressed to him of entering some other 
office on account of that difference, by 
arguments strongly indicating the high 
opinion he entertained of ” James Wilson, 
and in the same communication Mr. Justice 
Washington spoke of Wilson as “a sincere 
friend of the General.” George Washing¬ 
ton gave his personal note to Wilson for 
one hundred guineas “for receiving my [his] 
nephew Mr. Bushrod Washington as a 
student of law in his office. ” This docu¬ 
ment is of such historic interest that a 
facsimile reproduction, with Wilson’s receipt 
endorsed, is here inserted through the 
courtesy of Hon. Hampton L. Carson, 
former Attorney General of Pennsylvania, 
in whose historical collection it now is. 

On August 7, 1790, the trustees of the 
College of Philadelphia, afterwards the 
University of Pennsylvania, as the result 
of the suggestion of Charles Smith, Esq., 
son of the Provost, and formerly a student 
in James Wilson’s law office, appointed a 
committee of three, of which Wilson was 
one, to consider the propriety of establish¬ 
ing a law professorship, and one week later 
they submitted an outline plan, prepared 
by Wilson, for a course of law lectures. It 
is still preserved among the Wilson papers 
in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
It is so clear and so applicable to present . 
day conditions that we here reproduce the 
essential portions : 

“The object of a system of law lectures 
in this country should be to explain the 
Constitution of the United States, its parts, 
its powers, and distribution, and the opera¬ 
tion of those powers; to ascertain the merits 
of that Constitution by comparing it with 
the constitutions of other states, with the 
general principles of government, and with 
the rights of man; to point out the spirit, 
the design, and the probable effects of the 






JAMES WILSON —NATION BUILDER 


267 



laws and treaties of the United States; to 
mark particularly and distinctly the rules 
and decisions of the federal courts in matters 
both of law and practice. 

“To examine legally, critically, and his¬ 
torically the constitutions and laws of the 
several states in the Union; to compare 
those constitutions and laws with one 
another, and with the general rules of law 
and government; to investigate the nature, 
the properties, and the extent of that 
connection which subsists between the 


federal government and the several states, 
and, of consequence, between each of the 
states and all the others. 

“To illustrate the genius, the elements, 
the origin, and the rules of the common 
law, in its theory and in its practice; to 
trace as far as possible that law to its 
fountains, to the laws and customs of 
the Normans, the Saxons, the Britons, the 
ancient Germans, the Romans, and perhaps 
in some instances the Grecians. 

“Under this head it is to be observed, 



JAMES WILSON’S RECEIPT 








268 


THE GREEN BAG 


that the common law, in its true extent, 
'includes the law of nations, the civil law, 
the maritime law, the law-merchant, and 
the law, too, of each particular country, in 
all cases in which those laws are peculiarly 
applicable. All the foregoing subjects of 
discussion should be contrasted with the 
practice and institutions of other countries. 
They should be fortified by reasons, by 
examples, and by authorities; and they 
should be weighed and appreciated by the 
precepts of natural and revealed law.” 

To this man, James Wilson, jurisprudence 
was a synthetic science, and not a mere 
group of isolated subjects to be taught 
independently and without a comprehen¬ 
sive presentation of the interdependent and 
reciprocal relations of its various branches; 
to him it was also a philosophic ethical 
science, based on reason and justice, the 
various subdivisions of which he believed 
must necessarily be studied as a correlated 
whole for a proper comprehension of the 
particular parts. 

The proposed law course was established 
to consist of twenty-four lectures per annum, 
the fees to be paid by each pupil not to 
exceed ten guineas, and James Wilson on 
the 17th of August, 1790, was unanimously 
elected by the trustees by ballot to the 
chair created, and thus became the first 
professor of law in America. The initial 
lecture was delivered on the 15th of Decem¬ 
ber, 1790, in the presence of President 
Washington and many distinguished guests, 
including his cabinet, members of Congress, 
the judges of the national and state courts, 
and the executives, as well as legislative 
b6dies, of both Pennsylvania and Philadel¬ 
phia. At the conclusion of the lecture, the 
degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him. 
Many ladies were present, among them 
Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Alexander Hamil¬ 
ton, and Wilson alluding to the ladies, 
facetiously remarked that he had never 
before addressed such “a fair audience.” 
Invitations had been issued by Mr. Justice 
Wilson — for he was then senior Justice of 
the Supreme Court of the United States — 


to the President and his Cabinet, the mem¬ 
bers of Congress, etc., etc., and the Penn¬ 
sylvania Colonial Records show that the 
Supreme Executive Council of Pennsyl¬ 
vania formally resolved to attend in a body. 
The lectures are included in Wilson’s Works, 
a second edition of which was published in 
1896 1 by James DeWitt Andrews, LL.D., 
who so truly says in his introductory note: 

“Would you trace the history of popular 
governments, you will find the whole out¬ 
line traced by the master hand of Wilson in 
these lectures, prepared especially to instruct 
the American student as to the difference 
between the institutions which had before 
existed and the political system of law and 
government which exists in the United 
States. ... In one respect Wilson’s Works 
are remarkable. It is in this: each funda¬ 
mental principle is in. every instance traced 
to its source, whether it shall be a principle 
enunciated by Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, 
Gaius, Puffendorf, Locke, Grotius or Hobbes, 
Descartes or Hume, Vattel or Domat, who 
may have written upon some proposition 
or problem of the law or government.” 

There is no clearer or more satisfactory 
exposition anywhere of the basic principles of 
our system of jurisprudence and government 
than Wilson enunciated in these lectures 
and in the luminous arguments concerning 
the Constitution, which have fortunately 
been preserved to posterity, and which 
as the years go on, and Wilson’s real worth 
becomes fully appreciated, are destined to 
be held in the highest esteem. A 

Wilson’s earliest biographer, Robert Waln, 
Jr., writing of him in Sanderson’s Lives of 
the Signers, a quarter of a century after his 
death, described him as “about six feet in 
height, erect, or rather, if the expression 
may be allowed, stooping backward.” He 
also says: 

“His person was dignified and respec¬ 
table; and his manner a little constrained, 
but not ungraceful. His features could not 
be called handsome, although they were far 
from disagreeable; and they sometimes 
bore the appearance of sternness, owing to 
his extreme nearness of sight.” 

1 Wilson’s Works, Callaghan and Co., Chicago. 





JUDGE WILSON — NATION BUILDER 


269 


Apropos of this last remark, his friend 
Thomas Smith, a member of the Continental 
Congress, in a letter speaks of his looking 
through his spectacles, 1 “like a surveyor 
through a compass,” adding jokingly, for the 
letter was addressed to Wilson, “with a 
good-natured smile upon your countenance, 
so that all the house might see what excel¬ 
lent and white teeth you have.” The disin¬ 
terment of Wilson’s remains, at which the 
writer was present, disclosed that the last 
intimation had substantial foundation in 
fact; that the occlusion of the upper.and 
lower dentures was remarkably perfect; and 
that the lower jaw, while well proportioned 
and not objectionably obtruding, was un¬ 
usually long and massive, with the chin 
very broad and square, all betokening that 
strength and determination of character 
which, in Wilson, were such dominant 
traits. The remnants of the coffin showed 
the inside measurement to have been .six 
feet one inch in length. His wealth of 
hair still retained the bright auburn hue of 
the typical Scot, and was bound in a cue, 
after the manner of his time, though in life 
it was no doubt often well powdered, if we 
may judge from the snow whiteness of the 
hair in the miniature, 2 painted from life 
and reproduced as the frontispiece of the 
January issue. 

The'portrait of Wilson by Trumbull in 
his The Congress Voting Independence , now 
in the possession of Yale University, and 
in which Wilson’s is one of the five full 
length figures, shows a man of great power 
and personal vigor, with determination 
stamped on every line of face and figure. 
This painting, so superbly engraved nearly 
a century ago by Durand, and extensively 
distributed, is far superior to the replicas , 
one in Hartford and the other in the Capitol 
at Washington, in both of which the por¬ 
traiture is most defective. 

1 They were very large with wide, heavy frames 
and are now in the possession of Mr. Israel W. 
Morris, of Philadelphia. 

2 Now in possession of the Montgomery family 
of Philadelphia. 


William Rawle, the elder, in an address 
delivefed in 1824, declared that Wilson's 
views on the great questions of the day 
“were luminous and comprehensive,” and 
that “his knowledge and information always 
appeared adequate to the highest subject, 
and justly administered to the particular 
aspect in which it was presented.” He als <5 
said: 

“His person and manner were dignified; 
his voice powerful, though not melodious; 
his cadences judiciously, though somewhat 
artificially regulated. His discourse was 
generally of a reasonable length; he did not 
affect conciseness nor minuteness; he struck 
at the great feature of the case, and neither 
wearied his hearers by a verbose prolonga¬ 
tion, nor disappointed them by an abrupt 
conclusion. But his manner was rather 
imposing than persuasive, his habitual effort' 
seemed to be to subdue without conciliat¬ 
ing, and the impression left was more like 
that of submission to a stern than a humane 
conqueror.” 

On the other hand, Dr. Benjamin Rush, 
who served with him in the Continental 
Congress and who knew him intimately, 
declared that “he reasoned, declaimed, and 
persuaded, according to circumstances, with 
equal effect;” that “his mind, while he 
spoke, was one blaze of light;” and that 
“his eloquence was of the most command¬ 
ing kind.” Francis Hopkinson bore simi¬ 
lar testimony in a letter to Jefferson, declar¬ 
ing that “the powers of Demosthenes and 
Cicero seem to be united in this able orator.” 
Still another contemporary, Alexander Gray- 
don, in his celebrated Memoirs, recorded 
that “he never failed to throw the strongest 
light on his subjects, and seemed to flash 
rather than elicit conviction syllogistically, ” 
and that “ he produced greater orations than 
any other man I have ever heard”; and his 
great contemporary, Robert R. Livingston, 
of New York, wrote to Jefferson that his 
oratory in the Pennsylvania ratifying con¬ 
vention “combined information, logic, and 
eloquence with resistless effect.” “His 
voice,” records Wain, “was powerful,” and 
“its cadence perfectly modulated.” 







270 


THE GREEN BAG 


With all his great abilities and marvelous 
talents, he had sublime confidence and 
faith in humanity and in mankind’s ability 
to work out its mission on earth; and like 
so many men of massive mind, he was 
possessed of a simplicity of demeanor, in¬ 
deed to such an extent as to afford “fre¬ 
quent cause of good-humored merriment to 
his friends,” as noted in the sketch of his 
life in Sanderson’s Lives of the Signers. 
Wain also remarked that “Wilson was more 
a man of books, than of the world.” 

In his writings and speeches he illustrates 
or quotes from Plato, Aristotle and Homer, 
from Cato, Cicero, Caesar, Brutus and Cali¬ 
gula, as well from Bolingbroke, Bacon, the 
Bishop of Tours, Bishop Taylor and Berkeley, 
Bishop of Cloyne, and a host of others, 
among them, Dr. Robertson, Pope, Addison 
and Milton. Barbeyrack, Gogeut, Kaims and 
Puffendorf, Adam Smith, Blackstone, Coke, 
Yelverton, Justinian, Hadrian, Alfred the 
Great, Frederick the Great, Solon and 
Lycurgus, Marcus Antonius, Hodreau, Des 
Cartes, Beccaria, Heineccius, Hobbes, Locke, 
Hume, Sully, Laelia, Carew, Baron de 
Wolfius, Vattel, Domat, Necar, Fortesque, 
Burlamaqui and so on almost ad infinitum. 

The celebrated traveler, the Marquis de 
Chastellux, Major General in the French 
army, when on his travels in America, 
1780-82, was deeply impressed by his wide 
reading, recording in his notes 1 that Wilson, 
“a celebrated lawyer,” “has in his library 
all our best authors on public law and juris¬ 
prudence; the works of President Montes¬ 
quieu and of the Chancellor d’Aquessau, 
hold the first rank among them, and he 
makes them his daily study.” 

Wain in his biographic outline of Wilson’s 
life records: 

“ In private life he was friendly, inter¬ 
esting, and hospitable; amiable and benevo¬ 
lent in his deportment; of strict truth and 
integrity; and affectionate and indulgent 
as a husband and father. In a word, his 
domestic character and conduct were such 

1 Chastellux's Travels (English translation, Lon¬ 
don, 1787) Vol. I. p. 224. 


as, uniformly, to secure the reverence and 
affection of his family and friends.” 

Sometime after the “Fort Wilson Riot” 
in 1779, Wilson moved to Chestnut Street 
between Fourth and Fifth, later resided at 
274 Market Street, and on the 14th of 
April, 1788, took possession of the house at 
the Southwest comer of 7th and Market 
Streets, Philadelphia, in which the Declara¬ 
tion of Independence was written. 

On the 14th of April, 1786, he was called 
upon to mourn the death of his wife, whom 
he buried in Christ Churchyard, and to 
whose memory he erected a tablet, describ¬ 
ing her as “loved, honored, and lamented 
by her husband,” and by whose leaden 
casket his own remains were tenderly laid 
at his reburial on November 22d, 1906. 
After the lapse of seven years, he in 1793 
married Hannah, 1 daughter of Ellis Gray, a 
merchant of Boston. 

There were six children by the first mar¬ 
riage, and by the second a son, who died ill 
infancy. There are no descendants of Judge 
Wilson now living. One son by the first 
marriage, Bird Wilson, became a Pennsyl¬ 
vania Judge, in 1802, in a judicial circuit 
embracing the counties surrounding Phila¬ 
delphia, and seventeen years afterwards he 
resigned from the bench to enter Holy 
Orders. 

There are many indications throughout 
James Wilson’s writings that he had strong 
religious convictions, and it is said that when 
he resided in Cumberland County, Penn¬ 
sylvania, he was a trustee of the Presby¬ 
terian church there. Soon after coming to 
America, he published, between 1767 and 
1769, with the Rev. William White, after¬ 
wards the distinguished first Episcopalian 
bishop in America, a number of essays 
entitled The Visitant. He was also on 
terms of close intimacy with the Rev. Dr. 
William Smith, first Provost of the Uni¬ 
versity of Pennsylvania. He was an active 

1 Judge Wilson’s letter of proposal to Miss Gray 
is now in the autograph collection of Mr. Simon 
Gratz, of Philadelphia. 






/ 




JAMES WILSON — 

member of the American Philosophical 
Society, and on July 7, 1789, was elected an 
honorary member of the Pennsylvania 
Society of the Cincinnati. He was an asso¬ 
ciate of Benjamin Franklin, serving with 
him in many organizations and on numer¬ 
ous committees, and when Franklin was 
unable to speak in the United States Con¬ 
stitutional Convention, it was to Wilson he 
sent his manuscript with the request that 
he would read his views. It was also to 
Wilson that that brilliant politician and 
leader of men, Alexander Hamilton, turned 
for help in the effort to elect George Wash¬ 
ington President of the United States, send¬ 
ing him on January 25, 1789, this letter, 1 
which has not as yet found a place in any 
of the many editions of Hamilton’s writings: 

“ A degree of anxiety about a matter of 
importance to the new government induces 
me to trouble you with this letter. I mean 
the election of the President. We all feel 
of how much moment it is that Washington 
should be the man; and I aver I cannot 
think there is material room to doubt that 
this will be the unanimous sense. But as a 
failure in this object would be attended with 
the worst consequences, I cannot help con¬ 
cluding that even possibilities should be 
guarded against. 

“ Everybody is aware of that defect in the 
constitution" which renders it possible that 
the man intended for Vice-President may in 
fact turn up President. Everybody sees 
that the unanimity in Adams as Vice- 
President and a few votes insidiously with¬ 
held from Washington might substitute the 
former to the latter. And everybody must 
perceive that there is something to fear 
from the machinations of Anti-federal malig¬ 
nity. What in this situation is wise? By 
my accounts from the North, I have every 
reason to believe that Adams will run there 
universally. I learn that he is equally 
espoused in Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Dela¬ 
ware and that Maryland is not disinclined 
to him. I hear of no persons thought of to 
the South, but Rutledge in South Carolina 
and Clinton in Virginia. As the accounts of 

1 In the possession of Mr. Israel W. Morris, of 
Philadelphia, executor of Wilson’s last surviving 
descendant, a granddaughter, Miss Emily Hollings¬ 
worth. 


NATION BUILDER 


the appointments of electors will satisfy the 
partisans of those Gentlemen in each of 
those states, that they will have no coad¬ 
jutors elsewhere, it seems not improbable 
that they will relinquish the attempt in 
favor of their intended candidates. Here 
then is a chance of unanimity in Adams. 
Nothing is so apt to beget it as the opinion 
that the current sets irresistibly towards 
him. Men are fond of going with the stream. 
Suppose personal caprice or hostility to the 
new system should occasion half a dozen 
votes only to be withheld from Washington 
— what may not happen? Grant there is 
little danger. If any, ought it to be run? 

“The votes from New Hampshire to 
Delaware inclusively, and exclusive of New 
York, are 41, south of Delaware, 32. Here, 
supposing equal unanimity on each side in 
a different candidate, the chance is that 
there will be Eight votes to spare from 
Adams, leaving him still a majority. Take 
the probability of unanimity in the North 
in Adams and of division in the South be¬ 
tween different candidates, and the chances 
are almost infinite in his favor. Hence I 
conclude it will be prudent to throw away a 
few votes, say 7 or 8, giving these to persons 
not otherwise thought of. Under this im¬ 
pression I have proposed to friends in Con¬ 
necticut to throw away two, to others in 
Jersey to throw away an equal number, and 
I submit it to you whether it will not be 
well to lose three or four in Pennsylvania. 
Your advices from the South will serve you 
as the best guide; but for God’s sake let 
not our zeal for a secondary object defeat 
or endanger a first. I admit that in several 
important views, and particularly to avoid 
disgust to a man who would be a formidable 
head to Antifoederalists — it is much to be 
desired that Adams may have the plurality 
of suffrage for Vice-President; but if risk 
is to be run on one side or on the other 
can we hesitate where it ought to be pre¬ 
ferred? 

“ If there appears to you to be any danger, 
will it not be well for you to write to Mary¬ 
land to qualify matters there? . 

“ Yrs sincerely and affec’ly 
“A. Hamilton.” 

In January, 1789, Wilson was elected at 
the head of the Pennsylvania electoral 
ticket, and the deliberations of the first 
electoral college resulted in George Wash¬ 
ington triumphing over Adams and being 







272 


THE GREEN BAG 


elected first President of the United States. 
It has been said that James Wilson was 
Washington’s first choice for Chief Justice, 
but that political reasons resulted in the 
appointment of John Jay, with James 
Wilson merely as an Associate Justice. 

In making the appointment, President 
Washington wrote him on Sept. 30, 1789: 

“I experience peculiar pleasure in giving 
you notice of your appointment to the 
office of an Associate Judge in the Supreme 
Court of the United States. 

“Considering the Judicial System as the 
chief Pillar upon which our national Gov- 
emment must rest, I have thought it my 
duty to nominate for the high office, in 
that department, such men as I conceived 
would give dignity and lustre to our national 
character — and I flatter myself that the 
love which you have to our country, and a 
desire to promote general happiness, will 
lead you to a ready acceptance of the 
enclosed commission. ...” 

The commissign is dated the 29th of 
September, and now hangs in the Law 
School of the University of Pennsylvania. 
Wilson took the oath of office on October 
5, 1789, and at once entered upon that 
career which in the course of a few years 
afforded him the opportunity to write the 
all potent decision in the case of Chisholm v. 
Georgia, upon which, as has been so truly 
said, “rests the governmental fabric of the 
United States.” 

/^Wilson believed “Justice to be the great 
interest of man on earth,” that the minis¬ 
ters of the law were the conservators of 
the liberties of the people; that they should 
have that same respect for Constitutional 
restraints which he asserted it to be their 
duty to demand from and impose upon 
both the Executive and Legislative depart¬ 
ments of the government. Judicial deci¬ 
sions controlled by considerations of policy 
were to him utterly abhorrent. With these 
scathing words of denunciation, he warned 
against them: 

“Among all the terrible instruments of 
arbitrary power, decisions of Courts, whetted 
and guided and impelled by considerations 


of policy, cut with the keenest edge, and 
inflict the deepest and most deadly wounds.” 

To Wilson there was no No-man’s land 
between the limits of national and state 
jurisdictions — no vacancies or interfer¬ 
ences. .He had a broader and more com¬ 
prehensive grasp of the Constitution than 
had any man of his time, and certainly 
none have excelled him since, not even 
Marshall who was bound and restricted by 
the limits of the issues before him for adju¬ 
dication, and who left behind him no great 
treatise on the Constitution as did Wilson. 
It is not strange that Wilson should have 
foreshadowed all of Marshall^ great opin¬ 
ions and should have clearly enunciated 
the most far-reaching constitutional prin¬ 
ciple John Marshall ever wrote into a deci¬ 
sion, and this Wilson did in 1791 in these 
plain and simple words in his law lecture 
on the legislative powers of Congress: 1 

“The powers of Congress are, indeed, 
enumerated; but it was intended that those 
powers, thus enumerated, should be effect¬ 
ual, and not nugatory. In conformity to 
this consistent mode of thinking and acting. 
Congress has power to make all laws, which 
shall be necessary and proper for carrying 
into execution every power vested by the 
Constitution in the government of the 
United States, or in any of its officers or 
departments.” 

Did John Marshall know of Wilson’s 
writings? Did his great colleague, Joseph 
Story, know? Theoretically it is incon¬ 
ceivable that they did not; but any who 
are curious enough to look will find Mr. 
Justice Story’s autograph copy of Wilson's 
Works (edition, 1804) in the Library of 
Congress — in the Congress branch, under 
the Supreme Court room in the Capitol. 

Wilson, when a Justice of the Supreme 
Court, acted with courage and fortitude at 
the time of the insurrection in Pennsyl¬ 
vania, known as the Whiskey Rebellion. 
Congress had passed an excise law on March 
3, 1791. The senators from Pennsylvania 

j Wilson’s Works, 1804 ed. Vol. II, p. 181; 
1906 ed. Vol. II, p. 59. 






/ 


JAMES WILSON — NATION BUILDER 273 


were instructed by the Legislature to oppose 
the law as one “established on principle 
subversive of peace, liberty, and the rights 
of citizens.” The agents of the National 
Government sent to collect the excise tax 
were maltreated and driven away, and 
United States marshals attempting the 
service of writs were tarred and feathered. 
Even Albert Gallatin, afterwards Secretary 
of the Treasury under Jefferson, was a 
leader in the opposition to the collection of 
the tax, serving as secretary of a mass 
meeting of seven thousand armed insur¬ 
gents on August 1, 1794. The situation 
had become most critical, Washington sub¬ 
sequently declaring that many persons in 
the western parts of Pennsylvania “have at 
length been hardy enough to perpetuate acts 
which I am advised amount to treason, 
being overt acts of levying war against the 
United States.” The Governor of Penn¬ 
sylvania, General Thomas Mifflin, declined 
to take the initiative in calling upon the 
National Government for assistance. Wil¬ 
son, however, was equal to the emergency, 
and unflinchingly met the issue on the 4th 
of August, 1794, by a brief and formal 
communication to President Washington 
notifying him: 

“In the counties of Washington and Alle¬ 
gheny in Pennsylvania, laws of the United 
States are opposed and execution thereof 
obstructed by combinations too powerful to 
be suppressed by the ordinary course of 
judicial proceedings or by the powers vested 
in the marshall of that district.” 

There he stopped, — he made no recom¬ 
mendation. His statement was all suffi¬ 
cient. Washington promptly acted, and on 
August 7th, by his proclamation, called upon 
the insurgents to disperse and retire peace¬ 
ably to their homes. The warning being 
unheeded, Washington issued a requisition 
on the governors of Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
Maryland, and New Jersey, for fifteen thou¬ 
sand militia and in person accompanied 
the troops as far as Carlisle. The insur¬ 
rection, was suppressed merely by the show 


of federal force at the scene of the disturb¬ 
ances. Had Wilson temporized with the 
situation and lacked the courage to certify 
the facts to Washington, it is probable the 
insurrection would have gained such head¬ 
way as seriously to affect the ability of the 
national government to suppress it with¬ 
out bloodshed and resultant bitter feeling 
and resentment towards the Federal author¬ 
ities. 

The climax, however, in Wilson’s career 
came in 1793, when he wrote the all potent 
and powerful opinion in the case of Chis¬ 
holm v. Georgia, 1 declaring the United 
States to be a nation, the court standing 
with him three to two. Speaking of the 
decision in that case, Judge Cooley, in his 
lectures on constitutional law, says: 

“Justice Wilson, the ablest and most 
learned of the associates, took the national 
view and was supported by two others. . . . 
The Union could scarcely have had a valu¬ 
able existence had it been judicially deter¬ 
mined that the powers of sovereignty were 
exclusively in the States or in the people of 
the States severally.” 

Another able writer, in an article 2 char¬ 
acterizing Wilson as “The Pioneer of Ameri¬ 
can Jurisprudence,” declares: 

“On the foundation of this decision rests 
the governmental fabric of the United 
States. . . . Wilson set to himself the 
task of answering the question, ‘Do the 
people of the United States form a nation? ’ 
This question is illustrated by copious 
classical, historical, and juridical references, 
presented with the vivacity of an earnest 
debater, the answer constituting a thesis in 
which the broad observations of a scholar, 
the close analysis of a jurist, and the pro¬ 
found researches of a philosopher are happily 
united.” 

Still another, 3 referring to this great 
decision and Wilson’s invaluable services 
to our nationality as exemplified therein, 
asserts: 

1 2 Dallas, 4x9. 

2 Professor J. O. Pierce in The Dial, Vol. XX, 
p. 236. 

’ The Nation, Vol. LXII, p. 494 (1896). 







THE GREEN BAG 


V 


274 


“The sovereignty of the Union had been 
recognized, the idea 'of the state as a sub¬ 
ordinate political agency had been formu¬ 
lated — views to be wholly lost sight of, 
and to be vindicated two generations later 
by force of arms in a conflict which ended 
in their complete triumph. One of the 
earliest heralds of the true constitutional 
meaning and scope of that great conflict 
seems to have been Wilson.’’ 

The doctrine was thus authoritatively 
enunciated by the highest tribunal in the 
land, by a majority vote of one, that we 
are a nation, and not a mere confederacy of 
sovereign states. James Wilson's third great 
mission in America had been accomplished. 

There is yet a fourth — it is yet to be 
achieved, but it will not be until the spirit 
of the Constitution as Wilson conceived it 
and gave it birth, shall pervade the nation; 
not until there shall be removed, by an 
application of his doctrine, that “endless 
confusion and intricacy’’ with reference to 
national and state powers, which now 
exist, and which Wilson predicted would 
“unavoidably ensue ” if the fundamental 
principles, upon which our dual form of 
government was established, were not prop¬ 
erly observed. That this day will come 
none can doubt who have faith in the future 
of the American nation. When it does, 
Wilson will for the first time rise to his 
true proportions in the hearts and affec¬ 
tions of the American people. He has left 
with us these weighty words of wisdom and 
of warning: 

“I consider the people of the United 
States, as forming one great community; 
and I consider the people of the different 
states, as forming communities again on a 
lesser scale. From this great division of 
the people into distinct communities it will 
be found necessary that different propor¬ 
tions of legislative powers should be given 
to the governments, according to the nature, 
number, and magnitude of their objects. 

“ Unless the people are considered in these 
two views , we shall never be able to under¬ 
stand the principle on which this system was 
constructed." 1 

1 McMaster & Stone’s ’Pennsylvania and the 
Federal Constitution, p. 316. 


At another time he wrote in a holographic 
letter to George Washington: 

“The most intricate and the most delicate 
questions in our national jurisprudence will 
arise in running the line between the author¬ 
ity of the National Government and that of 
the several States. ... It is probable . . . 
that neither vacancies nor interferences will 
be found, between the limits of the two 
jurisdictions. For it is material to observe, 
that both jurisdictions together compose or 
ought to compose only one uniform and 
comprehensive system of government and 
laws.” 1 

Elsewhere he asserted: 

“Whenever an object occurs, to the 
direction of which no particular State is 
competent, the management of it must, of 
necessity, belong to the United States in 
Congress assembled. ” 2 

The thought, which was crystallized into 
the. General Welfare Clause of the Constitu¬ 
tion, he expressed thus: 

“The states should resign to the national 
government that part, and that part only, 
of their political liberty, which, placed in 
that government, will produce more good 
to the whole, than if it had remained in the 
several states. ” 3 

Still again he declared: 

“Whatever object of government is con¬ 
fined in its operation and effects within the 
bounds of a particular state, should be con¬ 
sidered as belonging to the government of 
that state; whatever object of government 
extends in its operation or effects beyond the 
bounds of a particular state, should be 
considered as belonging to the government 
of the United States. ” 4 

Such is the Wilson Doctrine. 

On August 21, 5 1798, James Wilson, at 
the age of fifty-six, died a broken-hearted 
man, in Edenton, North Carolina, at the 
home of his friend and colleague on the 
Bench of the Supreme Court of the United 

1 December 31, 1791 Washington Manuscripts, 
Library of Congress. 

2 Wilson's Works (Andrews’ ed.) Vol. I, p. 558. 

* Wilson's Works (Andrews’ ed.) Vol. I, p. 539. 

4 Wilson's Works (Andrews’ ed.) Vol. I, p. 538. 

s Not August 28 as most historians incorrectly 

have it. 







JAMES WILSON — NATION BUILDER 


2 75 


States, Mr. Justice Iredell. He had ex¬ 
changed circuits with the latter to escape 
the importunities of avaricious creditors 
pressing claims, — debts, which Wilson him¬ 
self said “were originally none of mine.” 

He had lost his fortune through the fail¬ 
ure of many of the same enterprises which 
wrecked Robert Morris, the financier of the 
Revolution, and sent that great patriot to a 
debtors’ prison, imprisonment for debt not 
yet having been abolished in Pennsylvania. 
The evident fact is that Wilson had such faith 
in the future development of America, and 
so keen a desire to hasten it that he put his 
money, as did many of the great statesmen 
of the time, into wild land, 1 buying more 
than he could carry, and all his available 
assets were swept away. 

That Wilson was prompted to make 
these investments mainly as the result of an 
earnest desire to help the development of 
his country, rather than from purely mer¬ 
cenary motives, none can doubt who ex¬ 
amine his papers, study his views, and grasp 
the trend of his mind. ^ Of property he 
declared : 

“Property is not an end, but a means. 
How miserable, and how contemptible is 
that man who inverts the order of nature 
; and makes his property, not a means, but 
j an end.” 

Referring to the future of America, con¬ 
cerning agriculture, he asserted: 

“Our strength will, be exerted in the 
cultivation of all the arts of peace. Of 
these the first is agriculture. ... On agri¬ 
culture, therefore, the wealth of nations is 
founded. Whether we consult the obser¬ 
vations that reason will suggest, or attend 
to the information that history will give, 
we shall, in each case, be satisfied of the 

1 An anonymous attack upon the memories 
of James Wilson and Patrick Henry, extensively 
printed some months ago, deserves no further 
notice than this comment. It was traced to its 
source, and authorities for the assertions de¬ 
manded, and such as were finally furnished, after 
repeated demands, not only completely vindi- 



influence of government, good or bad, upon 
the state of agriculture.” 

Again he said : 

“The wise and virtuous Numa was the 
patron of agriculture. He distributed the 
Romans into pagi or villages, and over each 
placed a superintendent to prevail with 
them, by every motive, to improve the 
practice of husbandry.” 

Still again: 

“Let us attend a moment to the situa¬ 
tion of .this country; it is a maxim of every 
government, and it ought to be a maxim 
with us, that the increase of numbers in¬ 
creases the dignity, the security, and the 
respectability of all governments; it is the 
first command given by the Deity to man, 
increase and multiply; this applies with 
peculiar force to this country, the smaller 
part of whose territory is yet inhabited. 
We are representatives, Sir, not merely of 
the present age, but of future times; 
not merely of the territory along the sea 
coast, but of regions immensely extended 
westward. We should fill, as fast as pos¬ 
sible, this extensive country, with men who 
shall live happy, free, and secure. To 
accomplish this great end ought to be the 
leading view of all our patriots and states¬ 
men.” 

With Wilson holding such views as these, 
we can understand why, as early as 1785, 
he endeavored to interest financiers in The 
Netherlands in the development of the 
vast, unpopulated regions of the United. 
States; and why he himself came to acquire 
large interests in land companies,' and 
endeavored to promote colonization on a 
most extensive scale. The men of his time 
did not have his far-reaching vision, and it 
is doubtful if they altogether understood his 
motives. Among the Wilsonia in the His¬ 
torical Society of Pennsylvania, is a holo¬ 
graphic manuscript, thirty-five legal pages 
in length, containing “ notes on cultivation 
of unused land in the United States” and a 
“Prospectus of an Association for the Pro¬ 
motion of Immigration from Europe.” But 
James Wilson was too far in advance of 
his time, and through the treachery of 
supposed friends and through circumstances 








276 


THE GREEN BAG 


over which he had no ultimate control, 
many of his plans failed of fruition during 
his lifetime, and he “fell in the traces” 
overburdened, laboring for the country he' 
loved and for the advancement of the great 
principles of civil liberty to which he had 
devoted his marvelous talents and the best 
portions of his time, energies, and life. 

Such are the landmarks of James Wil¬ 
son’s wondrous career of activity, and they 
also mark great crisal points in the early 
history of the American people. 

As the years go on, his name will be asso¬ 
ciated more and more with that of Wash¬ 
ington, as it often was during their lifetime. 
Jefferson relates in his Ana that in 1793, 
at a cabinet meeting, General Knox, the 
Secretary of War, introduced a cartoon 
recently printed, entitled “The Funeral of 

George W- and James W-, King 

and Judge,” in which the President was 
represented as placed on a guillotine, and 
Jefferson records this interesting sidelight 
on Washington: 

“The President was much inflamed; and 
got into one of those passions when he 
cannot command himself; ran on much on 
the personal abuse which had been bestowed 
on him; defied any man on earth to pro¬ 
duce one single act of his since he had been 
in t/ie government which was not done on 
th/ purest motives; [declared] that he had 
rT jver repented but once on having slipped 
the moment of resigning his office — and 
that was every moment since; that by God 
he had rather be in his grave than in his 
present situation; that he had rather be on 
his farm than to be made Emperor of the 
World; and yet that they were charging him 
with wanting to be a King.” 

Wilson was a truer Democrat than Jeffer¬ 
son and a better Federalist than Hamilton, 
'for he founded his entire theory of govern¬ 
ment on the people, absolutely and irrev¬ 
ocably, and while ardently advocating the 
upbuilding of the nation, stood like a rock 


against the abolition of the states, all of 
which represents not inconsistency but a 
broad, comprehensive grasp of fundamental 
principles. His faith in the people was real 
and sincere, — in his last analysis they 
were the sole and only hope in a republic. 
He asserted that under such a government: 

“There is a remedy, therefore, for every 
distemper of government, if the people are 
not wanting to themselves. For the people 
wanting to themselves there is no remedy .” /y 

Our nation is yet in its infancy, and it is 
probable that a hundred, three hundred, or 
five hundred years hence, when the per¬ 
spective of time shall have adjusted the 
proportions, two great figures will loom 
from the Revolutionary period, the one, 
Wilson’s, whose brain conceived and cre¬ 
ated the nation; the other, Washington’s,, 
who wielded the physical forces that made 
it. While doubtless the affections of Ameri¬ 
cans will always be centered in Washington 
as “the father of his country,” the world at 
large will be apt to place one above the 
other, and as to which will receive the 
laurel wreath of highest fame will probably 
depend upon whether at that distant day 
a man who wielded the physical forces will 
be deemed equal to the man who swayed 
the intellectual forces of his time. But 
however this may be, James Wilson’s fame 
is secure as the greatest intellectual power 
dominating the nation at its birth, and his 
services to our people, his doctrines and 
governmental theories are destined, in the 
oncoming years, more and more to receive 
popular recognition; for we live in an age 
of research, and they cannot escape the 
attention they deserve. “ Melius est petere 
fontes, quam sectari rivulos;’’ it is better 
to seek the fountains than to follow the 
rivulets. 

Philadelphia, Pa., April, 1Q07. 





JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT, 

AND 

THE WILSON DOCTRINE 


LUCIEN HUGH ALEXANDER 

i. 

OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR 




Reprinted from THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, 

MID-NOVEMBER ISSUE, 1906; VOL, 183: NO. 8. 











JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT, AND THE 
WILSON DOCTRINE. 


BY LUCIEN HUGH ALEXANDER OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR. 


“ I cannot do tetter than base my theory of governmental action upon 
the words and deeds of one of Pennsylvania’s greatest sons, Justice 
James Wilson .”— President Roosevelt. 

With these words Theodore Roosevelt, in a recent oration,* 
focussed public attention upon James Wilson, who through the 
vista of the nineteenth century is looming the intellectual colos¬ 
sus of the formative years of the Republic, and whose principles 
must eventually be the basis for the solution of those subtle 
constitutional problems which result from our closely inter¬ 
locked dual form of government. To many in our day, James 
Wilson will prove a revelation; to others, to an unnumbered 
throng ever increasing with the oncoming years, his governmental 
theories will be a never-failing source of inspiration; and to the 
nation the Wilson doctrine is the harbinger, the hope and the 
salvation for untrammelled forward progress in the field of 
destiny. 

The object of these pages shall be to place this man in true 
perspective before the people whom he loved and in whose service 
he died. In order to do so, the writer will not confine himself 
to the enunciation of his personal views, lest in the recital Wil¬ 
son suffer; but, with “wealth of quotation,” he will draw from 
the opinions of that little band of constitutional lawyers and his¬ 
torians who, in the examination of the great problems of gov¬ 
ernmental action, are never satisfied until they have mastered 
the principles and sought the sources, and who, in seeking, found 
—James Wilson, luminous, transcendant, constitution-maker, 
nation-builder; the intellectual giant, in whose train have fol- 
* Dedication of Pennsylvania’s new Capitol, October 4th, 1906. 



2 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 

lowed that great galaxy of constitution interpreters—Hamilton, 
Jay, Webster, Bradley, Taney and, peer of all, John Marshall 
—whose work and whose names are an immortal part of our com¬ 
mon heritage. 

In juridical learning, in national patriotism, in the power to 
make things happen, the dynamic intellectual power, no man of 
the great constructive days of the American Republic excelled 
James Wilson. He was a member of the Continental Congress, 
a signer of the Declaration of Independence, great leader in 
the United States Constitutional Convention and a Justice of 
the Supreme Court by appointment of Washington on the es¬ 
tablishment of that Court. More than any one man he made 
the Declaration possible and practically effective. His vote made 
it possible; for without the prestige of Pennsylvania’s vote, it 
would probably have failed of affirmative action, and certainly 
would have proved abortive. Two of the Pennsylvania delegates 
(John Dickinson and Robert Morris) were unwilling to support 
action so radical, and declined to vote. Exclusive of Wilson, the 
four remaining Pennsylvania delegates were evenly divided, and 
Wilson, untrammelled by the influence of the learned Dickinson, 
his preceptor in the law, and holding the balance of power, 
wielded it for the cause of liberty and independence. Further¬ 
more, he made the Declaration practically effective by holding 
off the vote until there was substantial backing by the people, 
thereby securing virtual unanimity of endorsement. This is 
evidenced by an extraordinary certificate, recently located by the 
writer in the National Archives, signed by John Hancock, 
Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Edward Rutledge, Robert 
Morris, and other members of the Continental Congress setting 
forth Wilson’s attitude in the matter of the Declaration. In a 
forty-page pamphlet, written some years before and published 
to the world twenty-three months in advance of the Declaration 
of Independence, and extensively circulated among the mem¬ 
bers of the first Continental Congress, he used the phrase “all 
men are by nature free and equal,” and at the same time he 
enunciated the doctrine that, by the British constitution, Par¬ 
liament possessed no legislative power over the colonies, sus¬ 
taining his argument with copious authority. Again in January, 
1775, he was far in advance of other patriots, asserting at Phila¬ 
delphia in a provincial convention, in a speech which will ever 


3 


JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT. 

stand as one of the highest types of American oratory, that 
George III, “forgetting his character and dignity, has stepped 
forth, and openly avowed and taken part in the iniquitous con¬ 
duct” of his ministers and Parliament, thereby violating the 
British constitution; and he proposed to the convention a reso¬ 
lution declaring: 

“ That the acts of the British Parliament for altering the charter 
and constitution of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, ... for shutting 
the port of Boston, and for quartering soldiers on the inhabitants of 
the colonies are unconstitutional and void. . . . That all force em¬ 
ployed to carry such unjust and illegal attempts into execution is force 
without authority; and that it is the right of British subjects to resist 
such force; that this right is founded upon both the letter and the 
spirit of the British constitution.” 

At the outbreak of the Revolution, he organized a regiment. 
He later became Brigadier-General and the Director-General of 
the Pennsylvania Militia. In the Continental Congress he was 
chairman of the committee on “Defence of Philadelphia,” then 
the seat of government, and an active member of the Board of 
War. He was also Advocate-General for France in America, 
serving without pecuniary compensation. 

It is now conceded by those most competent to pass judg¬ 
ment that, in the great Constitutional Convention of 1787, lie 
was the most learned and intellectually the ablest of the mem¬ 
bers. His power and influence were exceeded by the delegate of 
no other State. Indeed, Wilson made such an impress upon 
the Convention that, after it had been in session two months, 
he was elected by ballot one of the Committee of Five on detail, 
to which was intrusted the work of actually drafting the Con¬ 
stitution, and he is reputed to have been the chairman of that 
committee. In the deliberations of the Convention, his services 
were probably of more practical value than those of any other 
delegate. Madison’s minutes show that in vital matters his in¬ 
tellect dominated the proceedings. Contemporaneous records 
make clear that it is no undue praise to record that, without the 
force, power and tact of Wilson in the Constitutional Convention, 
without his persuasive arguments and profound learning, no 
agreement could have been reached upon a federal Constitution 
which would have been ratified, or which, if ratified, would have 
stood the stress of conflict through a score of years. 


4 


THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 


The key-note of Wilson’s entire career is his unyielding faith 
in the people as the rock upon which of necessity a republic must 
stand. His faith in the people was more practically sincere, more 
real, more abiding than Jefferson’s. He believed that all sov¬ 
ereignty—the sovereignty of a nation, with all the powers and 
incidents appertaining thereto—was lodged in the people, the 
people of the nation collectively, and not in the States qua States, 
or in the people as segregated into particular States. 

His services in the Constitutional Convention cannot well be 
overestimated. Hampton L. Carson, the Attorney-General of 
Pennsylvania and historian of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, refers to them in part as follows: 

“ He desired that the various branches of the new Government 
I should be thoroughly independent of each other. While willing to pre¬ 
serve the State governments he sought to guard the General Govern¬ 
ment against the encroachments of the States. . . . He pointed out 

the advantages of a national government over one purely federative, 
and showed that the individuality ... of the States was not incom¬ 
patible with a general government. He wished the executive to con¬ 
sist of but one person, and proposed that the President should be chosen 
by electors elected by the people. . . . He urged that senators as well 
as representatives should be chosen by the people. . . . He advocated 
a proportional representation of the States in Congress. . . . He desired 
a provision that the contracts of the Confederation should be fulfilled, 
and advocated a guarantee to the States of republican institutions. He 
opposed a proposition to allow the States to appoint to national offices, 
and doubted whether the writ of habeas corpus should ever be suspended. 
He contended for an absolute prohibition upon the States relative to 
\ paper money and also for a provision prohibiting the passing of laws 
j impairing the obligation of contracts. . . . He is strangely unknown, 
l considering the high position to which he is entitled.” 

This is but a brief outline of a few of the great themes to 
which Wilson addressed himself in the Convention. Madison’s 
mimites strikingly portray his invaluable and brilliant services. 

In Pennsylvania the fight for the ratification of the United 
States Constitution was intense, and to Wilson’s herculean labors 
in its behalf, to his oratory, to the power and logic of his argu¬ 
ments, more than to anything else, was the final victory due. 
This Pennsylvania contest was bitter, and Wilson was burned 
in effigy'by the anti-federalists. Had the work of the Constitu¬ 
tional Convention been repudiated by Pennsylvania, its adoption 
by a sufficient number of States could not have been secured. 


JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT. 5 

Curtis, in his “Constitutional History of the United States,” 
says: 

[Wilson’s Pennsylvania speech for ratification] “ is one of the most 
comprehensive and luminous commentaries on the Constitution that 
has come down to us from that period. It drew from Washington a 
high encomium, and it gained the vote of Pennsylvania for the new 
Government against the ingenious and captivating objections of his op¬ 
ponents.” 

Bancroft declares: 

“ But for one thing, without doubt, Pennsylvania would have refused 
to have ratified the Constitution, and that one incident marks alike 
the technical knowledge, the comprehensive grasp and force of argu¬ 
ment of this great man.” 

Graydon says of him: 

“ He never failed to throw the strongest light on his subjects, and 
seemed rather to flash than elicit conviction syllogistically. He pro¬ 
duced greater orations than any other man I have ever heard.” 

Francis Hopkinson, on December 14th, 1787, wrote Thomas 
Jefferson, then in Paris: 

“This [the new Constitution] has been the subject of great debate 
in our convention [the Pennsylvania ratifying convention], and perhaps 
the true principles of government were never upon any occasion more 
fully and ably developed. Mr. Wilson exerted himself to the astonish¬ 
ment of all hearers. The powers of Demosthenes and Cicero seem to 
be united in this able orator. The principal speeches have been taken 
in shorthand.” 

James DeWitt Andrews, of the Hew York Bar, pays him this 
tribute: 

“ The correctness of his conclusions upon constitutional matters may 
be judged when we find that he not only maintained that it was the 
power and the duty of the courts to declare void legislative acts which 
contravene the Constitution, but he also clearly explained that a legis- 
, lative grant was a contract, and also in the same connection maintained 
I that the charter of a corporation might in some cases be a contract, 
| which view was adopted in the Dartmouth College case. Still more 
remarkable is his argument upon the inherent powers of the nation, 
• which he maintained existed outside of enumerated powers, in cases 

1 where the object involved was entirely beyond the power of the States 
and was a power ordinarily possessed by sovereign nations. Thus by 
these arguments anticipating the grounds taken by Judge Marshall in 
Fletcher v. Peck, Dartmouth College case and Marbury v. Madison, 
and also the positions necessarily taken in order to arrive at the legal 
conclusions reached in the legal tender causes.” 


6 


THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 


Bancroft remarks: 

“ We have all read of the great argument of Webster, that the Con¬ 
stitution is not a compact. Wilson in the Convention presented this 
question thus: ‘ This system is not a compact. I cannot discern the 

least trace of a compact. The introduction to the work is not an un¬ 
meaning flourish; the system itself tells what it is, an ordinance, an 
establishment of the people.’ ” 

In a long and remarkable holographic letter to George Wash¬ 
ington, dated December 31st, 1791, recently located in the 
Washington Archives, Wilson urged the importance of a digest 
of the laws of the United States, which should clearly define 
the limits of State and National rights, and he himself offered to 
undertake the task. With prophetic vision he seemed to see the 
oncoming Civil War and hoped to prevent it. In this letter to 
Washington he said (italics indicate Wilson’s underscoring) : 

“ The most intricate and the most delicate questions in our national 
jurisprudence will arise in running the line between the authority 
of the National Government and that of the several States. . . . 
A controversy, happening between the United States and any par¬ 
ticular State in the Union, will be viewed and agitated, with bias 
and passion, like a question of politics. For this reason, the prin¬ 
ciples and rules on which it must be determined should be clearly and 
explicitly known before it arises. ... It is probable, therefore, that the 
directions which the line above mentioned ought to take, may be traced 
with a satisfactory degree of clearness as well as of precision; and that 
neither vacancies nor interferences will be found, between the limits 
of the two jurisdictions. For it is material to observe, that both juris* 
1 dictions together compose or ought to compose only one uniform and 
! comprehensive system of government and laws.” 

Had Wilson been selected to undertake the work lie outlined 
to Washington, who shall say but that the great Civil War might 
have been avoided? For it is possible that, had the line between 
State and National powers been run, clearly and forcefully, as 
Wilson would have run it, “before”—as Wilson put it—“be¬ 
fore a controversy happening between the United States and any 
particular State in the Union” had been “agitated with bias 
and passion,” the great issue would never have reached such a 
crisis that only the arbitrament of shot and shell and a 
nation’s blood could settle it. It would have cut from under 
the feet of Calhoun and his followers the very ground upon 
which they relied for popular support. Listen to the words of 
Professor A. C. McLaughlin, formerly of Harvard and the Car- 



JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT. 


negie Institution, now at Ann Arbor. He quotes, from Madison’s 
minutes of the Constitutional Convention, a paragraph from the 
notes on Wilson’s speech of June 25th, 1787, in favor of the 
election of United States senators by direct vote of the people, 
to wit: 

“He [Wilson] was opposed to an election by the State legislatures. 
In explaining his reasons, it was necessary to observe the twofold re¬ 
lations in which the people would stand,—first, as citizens of the General 
Government, and, secondly, as citizens of their particular State. The 
General Government was meant for them in the first capacity; the State 
governments in the second. Both governments were derived from the 
people, both meant for the people; both, therefore, ought to be regulated 
on the same principles. . . . The General Government is not an assem¬ 
blage of States, but of individuals, for certain political purposes; it is 
not meant for the States, but for the individuals composing them. The 
individuals, therefore, not the States, ought to be represented in it.” 

Professor McLaughlin comments as follows:* 

“ W 7 ilson in these sentences gave the fundamental idea of the federal 
State; and because it was he who did present these thoughts so con¬ 
spicuously, he deserves unstinted praise. This double allegiance and 
double obedience owed by each citizen to two governments, each distinct 
from the other, and each supreme in its own field, is the most striking 
and the most important feature of the political organization of our 
country. ... It represents the greatest of our achievements in state¬ 
craft. It is wonderful that Wilson should have grasped this principle 
so firmly and insisted on it so strenuously, when the men around him 
were striving eagerly for some local advantage or, if wise and generous, 
were too often lost in the contemplation of the mere mechanism of 
government. Seventy years later, at another fateful period in our his¬ 
tory, statesmen saw but dimly this great fundamental fact in our 
political system. James Buchanan and Jeremiah S. Black, wrestling 
in agony of spirit with the problems of secession, begat together the 
mysteries of that wonderful message, which declared that secession was 
illegal, but that there was no legal means to prevent it, because the 
National Government could not coerce a State. They apparently did 
not comprehend these elementary facts which Wilson so clearly stated.” 

Although Wilson is strangely unknown, even to intelligent 
educated Americans, constitutional historians have at last begun 
to realize his place as nation-builder. 

John Bach McMaster recently declared: 

“ I believe Wilson to be the most learned lawyer of his time. As a 
statesman, he was ahead of his generation in foresight. Many of the 

*“ James Wilson and the Constitution,” Polt. Sc. Qr., March, 1897. 

VOL. CLXXXIII.-NO. 603. 62 




8 


THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 


great principles of government advocated by him, we, as a nation, are 
only beginning to apply." 

James Bryce, in his “American Commonwealth/’ speaks of 
“the acuteness of James Wilson,” and declares him to have been 
“one of the deepest thinkers and most exact reasoners among 
the members of the Convention of 1787.” He also says of him: 

“ The speeches of the latter in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, 
as well as in the great Convention of 1787, display an amplitude and 
profundity of view in matters of constitutional theory which place him 
in the front rank of the political thinkers of his age.” 

Commenting on Wilson’s law lectures, James DeWitt An¬ 
drews, long the chairman of the American Bar Association’s 
Committee on Classification of the Law, and the editor of the last 
edition* of Wilson’s Works, remarks: 

“Would you trace the history of popular governments, you will find 
the whole outline traced by the master hand of Wilson in these lectures, 
prepared especially to instruct the American student as to the difference 
between the institutions which had before existed, and the political sys¬ 
tem of law and government which exists in the United States. ... In 
one respect Wilson’s works are remarkable. It is in this: each funda¬ 
mental principle is in every instance traced to its source, whether it 
shall be a principle enunciated by Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, Gaius, 
Puffendorf, Locke, Grotius or Hobbes, Descartes or Hume, Vattal or 
Domat, who may have written upon some proposition or problem of the 
law or government. Little of value seems to have escaped the examina¬ 
tion of our author, and the number of references to classical jurists, 
philosophers, politicians or historians who have written upon subjects 
connected with jurisprudence is remarkable.” 

Andrews also says: 

“ The address upon the powers of the British Parliament stands un¬ 
equalled by anything upon the same subject, and the argument upon 
the Bank of North America stands as a constitutional exposition second 
to no constitutional argument or opinion delivered before or since. 
Indeed it not only embraced every ground of argument which Marshall 
was called upon to treat, but it assumed and defined precisely the 
position which was necessarily taken in the Legal Tender decisions.” 

Bryce pays Wilson the tribute of being the first statesman, 
British or American, to have an adequate comprehension of the 
powers and limitations of the British system of government. 
Beferring to one phase of it, he declares: 

* Published at Chicago in 1896. The first edition was issued at Phila¬ 
delphia in 1804, in three handsome volumes, with engraving of the 
author, and under the direction of Bird Wilson. 



JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT . 


9 


“ The first statesman who remarked this seems to have been James 
Wilson, who said in 1787: ‘ The idea of a constitution limiting and 

superintending the operations of legislative authority, seems not to have 
been accurately understood in Britain. There are at least no traces 
of practice comformable to such a principle. The British Constitution 
is just what the British Parliament pleases. When the Parliament 
transferred legislative authority to Henry VIII, the act transferring it 
could not, in the strict acceptation of the term, be called unconstitu¬ 
tional.’ ” 

Again, referring to the United States Constitution, Bryce 
says: 

“ Such novelty as there is belongs to the scheme of a supreme or 
rigid Constitution, reserving the ultimate power to the people, and 
limiting in the same measure the power of a legislature. . . . This was 
clearly stated by James Wilson of Pennsylvania, one of the deepest 
thinkers and most exact reasoners among the members of the Con¬ 
vention of 1787. Speaking of the State constitutions, he remarked in 
the Pennsylvania Convention of 1787: ‘Perhaps some politician who 
has not considered with sufficient accuracy our political systems would 
observe that in our governments the supreme power was vested in the 
constitutions. This opinion approaches the truth, but does not reach 
it. The • truth is that, in our governments, the supreme, absolute and 
uncontrollable power remains in the people. As our constitutions are 
superior to our legislatures, so the people are superior to our constitu¬ 
tions.’ ” 

Bancroft brings out clearly Wilson’s grasp of the fact that, 
under the American Constitution, all sovereignty remains in the 
people. He records: 

“ The fiercest day’s debate in Pennsylvania was upon the omission 
in the federal Constitution of a Bill of Rights. Wilson, rising to prove 
that there was no need of a Bill of Rights, said: ‘The boasted Magna 
Charta of England derives liberties of the inhabitants of that kingdom 
from the gift and grant of the king, and no wonder the people were 
anxious to obtain Bills of Rights; but here the fee-simple remains in 
the people, and by this Constitution they do not part with it. The 
preamble to the proposed Constitution, “ We, the -people of the United 
States, do establish,” contains the essence of all the Bills of Rights that 
have been or can be devised.’ ” 

Vice-Chancellor Emery of New Jersey recently said: 

“ If Wilson performed no other service to the nation, he deserves our 
unending gratitude for introducing into the nomenclature of constitu¬ 
tional law the phrase ‘ obligation of contracts,’ and securing the adop¬ 
tion of the form of constitutional mandate, ‘ No State shall pass any 
law impairing the obligation of contracts.’ ” 


10 


TEE NORTE AMERICAN REVIEW. 


Of Wilson., former president of the American Bar Association 
Simeon E. Baldwin, Justice of the Supreme Court of Connec¬ 
ticut and professor in the Yale Law School, writes: 

“ Ee teas the real founder of to hat is distinctive in our American 
jurisprudence, and his arguments for the reasonableness and practica¬ 
bility of international arbitration were a century ahead of his time.” 

His views on international law, remonstrance, intervention, 
mediation and arbitration are profound, and, though set forth 
more than a century ago in his published works, we are but 
barely coming abreast of them. For international arbitration, 
Wilson argued thus: 

“ Individuals unite in civil society and institute Judges with au¬ 
thority to decide, and with authority also to carry their decisions into 
full and adequate execution, that Justice may be done and war may be 
prevented. Are states too wise or too proud to receive a lesson from 
individuals? Is the idea of a common Judge between nations less ad¬ 
mirable than that of a common Judge between men? If admissible 
in idea, would it not be desirable to have an opportunity of trying 
whether the idea may not be reduced to practice?” 

Wilson was profoundly learned in the Homan or Civil Law, 
and concerning his argument for international arbitration, An¬ 
drews remarks: 

“ He refers to the sentiments expressed in the Alcoran; to the ex¬ 
ample of the Amphictyony; to the Lacedaemonian arbitration between 
Megara and Athens; to the offer of the Romans to arbitrate; and lastly 
to . . . the w r ords of Thucydides, where he says: ‘ It is cruel and de¬ 

destable to treat him as an enemy who is willing to submit his case 
to an arbitration.’ ” 

Speaking of the United States Constitutional Convention, 
John Marshall Harlan, now the senior Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, in 1900, said of Wilson:* 

“ He was recognized as the most learned member of that notable body. 
Webster said that Justice was the great interest of man on earth. Of 
Justice, as illustrated by the science of the law, Wilson had been an 
earnest devotee from his early manhood. In the highest and best sense 
he was a great lawyer. Still more, he had become a master in the 
science of government. He was therefore preeminently qualified to take 
part in laying the foundations of institutions under which the rights 
of man would be secure against the assaults of power. What a privilege 
it was to look upon that convention of patriots and statesmen—the 
wisest assemblage of public servants that ever convened at any time in 
the history of the world—no one of them wiser than James Wilson.” 

* “James Wilson and the Formation of the Constitution,’’ Ainer. Law Review 
Aug.-Sept., 1900. 


JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT. 


11 


Chisholm versus Georgia, the first of the great constitutional 
cases to arise in the Supreme Court of the United States—the 
only one while Wilson was a Justice of it—exemplifies his grasp 
upon fundamental principles. Of the all-potent decision in that 
case, Judge Cooley, in his lectures on American Constitutional 
History, says: 

“Justice Wilson, the ablest and most learned of the associates, took 
the national view and was supported by two others. . . . The Union 
could scarcely have had a valuable existence had it been judicially de¬ 
termined that the powers of sovereignty were exclusively in the States 
or in the people of the States severally. Neither is it important that 
we proceed to demonstrate that the doctrine of an indissoluble union, 
though not in terms declared, is nevertheless in its elements, at least, 
contained in that decision. The qualified sovereignty, National and State, 
the subordination of State to Nation, the position of the citizen as at 
once a necessary component part of the federal and of the State sys¬ 
tem, are all exhibited.” 

“The Nation,” in 1896,* in reviewing the Andrews edition 
of Wilson’s Works, referred to this great decision, and said: 

“ The sovereignty of the Union had been recognized, the idea of the 
State as a subordinate political agency had been formulated—views to 
be wholly lost sight of, and to be vindicated two generations later by 
force of arms in a conflict which ended in their complete triumph. One 
of the earliest heralds of the true constitutional meaning and scope of 
that great conflict seems to have been Wilson. The opinion in Chisholm 
vs. the State of Georgia is really his best monument. . . . [It is] that of 
an orator, a publicist, a scholar and a metaphysician, dissatisfied with 
himself unless he could sIioav that the decision he had reached was called 
for, not merely by the Constitution, but by all history, all law, and 
finally by all philosophy.” 

J. 0. Pierce, in. an articlef characterizing Wilson as the “Pio¬ 
neer of American Jurisprudence,” said of this decision: 

“ On the foundation of this decision rests the governmental fabric of 
the United States. . . . Wilson set to himself the task of answering 
the question, ‘ Do the people of the United States form a nation?’ This 
question is illustrated by copious classical, historical and juridical ref¬ 
erences, presented with the vivacity of an earnest debater, the answer 
constituting a thesis in which the broad observations of a scholar, the 
close analysis of a jurist, and the profound researches of a philosopher 
are happily united. . . . His distinctions between statehood and sov¬ 
ereignty, his terse assertions of the sovereignty of the people, his illus- 

* Vol. LXII, p. 494. 

-j- The Dial, Vol. XX, p. 236. 





12 


THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 


trations of the inherent characteristics and the high honor of that 
sovereignty, and his close analysis of all the governmental questions in¬ 
volved in the American system, might to-day be well taken as a text¬ 
book by the student of our institutions.” 

Pierce also, with rare and brilliant insight, remarks of Wilson: 

“ But not in his generation could a just discrimination assign to his 
labors, or to those of his colaborers, their relative or comparative value 
or importance. Who could then have foreseen, for instance, the sub¬ 
sequent decision in the Dartmouth College case, to be followed by a 
long train of adjudications establishing corporate rights under charters? 
Who could then have anticipated the desirability of ascertaining and 
locating the earliest assertion of the constitutional principle that a 
legislative contract is protected against legislative encroachment? Who 
could have foreseen the judicial career of a Marshall, or have believed 
possible a civil war between the adherents of Webster’s constitutional 
views and the partisans of Calhounism? The great creative work of Wil¬ 
son as a constitutional jurist could scarcely have been assigned its true 
position in our juridical edifice at any time prior to the late war.” 

Such are a few of the encomiums paid Wilson by those who 
are beginning to realize the transcendent value of his work.* 
Yet this man, popularly so little known and to whom the 
American people owe so much, lies buried in a distant State, 
where he died one hundred and eight years ago, far from kith 
and kin, and in a grave whose headstone even has no name on it. 

Little wonder is it that James Bryce exclaimed in his Amer¬ 
ican masterpiece: “Wilson is one of the luminaries of the time 
to whom subsequent generations of Americans have failed to do 
full justice 

Now a change has come, and near the Ides of November the 
remains of this great man will be tenderly removed by the Gov¬ 
ernor and people of Pennsylvania to rest at the side of his wife 
in old Christ Church burial-ground, Philadelphia, not far from 
the tomb of Benjamin Franklin and other patriots. 

“At last,” as said Joseph H. Choate the other day, “at last 
the nation is beginning to appreciate Wilson.” The United 
States Government will convey the remains to Philadelphia on 
an armored cruiser of the Navy. On arrival, they will be re¬ 
ceived with the highest civic and military honors, and escorted 
to Independence Hall, where for twenty-four hours they will 

See illuminating sketch by Frank Gaylord Cook, Atlantic Monthly, 
September, 1889; also 1906, annual address before Pa. Hist. Soc. by 
Burton Alva Konkle, the historian, the most comprehensive and only 
complete biographic outline so far attempted (not yet in print). 




JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT. 


13 


lie m state at the scene of his greatest triumphs, in the sacred 
spot where he successfully battled for the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence, where he bore so valiant a part in the mighty intellec¬ 
tual and victorious struggle of 1787 to make the American colo¬ 
nies a nation, and where he also sat as the first great Justice of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, breathing the breath 
of national life into the Constitution. At his bier, to do him 
honor and voice their tributes, will gather high Federal and State 
officials, the Supreme Court of the United States, representatives 
of the Congress, and the Attorney-General of the United States by 
express delegation of the President to speak for the executive 
department of the Government. Thus will the last of the 
“fathers of the Republic,” whose ashes have as yet found but 
temporary sepulchre, be laid to rest. 

Yet in one sense Wilson is not dead. His spirit like the fires 
of eternal Truth can never die. It is stronger and more power¬ 
ful than a century ago, by force of the great principles he enun¬ 
ciated, and which have gained stability with the advance of liberty 
and the growth of republican institutions the world over. It is 
not so much as statesman but as jurist Wilson now lives 
with us. As statesman, his work for America ended with the 
adoption of the Constitution and birth of the nation. They 
stand as an' imperishable monument to what he and the fathers 
did as warriors and statesmen. 

The true value of Wilson is not in the glory of past achieve¬ 
ment, but in the fact that his doctrine of constitutional interpre¬ 
tation is big with possibilities for the future, and potent to 
prove the solvent for every constitutional problem involved in 
the delicate questions resulting from State individuality and 
National sovereignty. His doctrine has stood immovable through 
the storm and stress of civil war, binding together the founda¬ 
tions of the Federal Government as they tottered; and in times of 
peace it proved the guide for executive action by Washington 
and Jackson, and for judicial interpretation by John Marshall. 

“ ’Tis the set of the soul 
That decides the goal, 

And not the calm or the strife.” 

And now it is President Roosevelt who embodies the spirit of 
the Wilson doctrine. In his last notable public utterance, he 
declared: 


14 


the north American review. 


“ 1 cannot do better than base my theory of governmental action 
upon the words and deeds of one of Pennsylvania’s greatest sons, Justice 
James Wilson. Wilson’s career has been singularly overlooked for many 
years, but I believe that more and more it is now being adequately ap¬ 
preciated. ... He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He 
was one of the men who saw that the Revolution, in which he had 
served as a soldier, would be utterly fruitless unless it was followed by 
a close and permanent union of the States; and in the Constitutional 
Convention, and in securing the adoption of the Constitution and ex¬ 
pounding what it meant, he rendered services even greater than he ren¬ 
dered as a member of the Continental Congress, which declared our 
independence; for it was the success of the makers and preservers of 
the Union which justified our independence. 

“He believed in the people with the faith of Abraham Lincoln; and, 
coupled with his faith in the people, he had what most of the men who 
in his generation believed in the people did not have — that is, the 
courage to recognize the fact that faith in the people amounted to 
nothing unless the representatives of the people assembled together in 
the National Government were given full and complete power to work 
on behalf of the people. He developed even before Marshall the doctrine 
(absolutely essential not merely to the efficiency but to the existence 
of this nation) that an inherent power rested in the nation, outside 
of the enumerated powers conferred upon it by the Constitution, in 
all cases where the object involved was beyond the power of the several 
States and w r as a power ordinarily exercised by sovereign nations. 

“ In a remarkable letter in which he advocated setting forth in early 
and clear fashion the powers of the National Government, he laid down 
the proposition that it should be made clear that there were neither 
vacancies nor interferences between the limits of State and National 
jurisdictions, and that both jurisdictions together composed only one 
uniform and comprehensive system of government and laws; that is, 
whenever the States cannot act, because the need to be met is not one 
of merely a single locality, then the National Government, representing 
all the people, should have complete power to act. It was in the spirit 
of Wilson that Washington, and Washington’s lieutenant, Hamilton, 
acted; and it was in the same spirit that Marshall construed the law.” 

And here the President applies the Wilson doctrine to the vital 
issue of our day. 

“ It is only by acting in this spirit that the national judges, legisla¬ 
tors, and executives can give a satisfactory solution of the great ques¬ 
tion of the present day—the question of providing on behalf of the 
sovereign people the means which will enable the people in effective 
form to assert their sovereignty over the immense corporations of the 
day. Certain judicial decisions have done just what Wilson feared; 
they have, as a matter of fact, left vacancies, left blanks between the 
limits of possible State jurisdiction and the limits of actual National 
jurisdiction over the control of the great business corporations. It is 


15 


JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT. 

the narrow construction of the powers of the National Government 
which in our democracy has proved the chief means of limiting the 
national power to cut out abuses, and which is now the chief bulwark 
of those great moneyed interests which oppose and dread any attempt 
to place them under efficient governmental control. 

“ Many legislative actions and many judicial decisions, which I am 
confident time will show to have been erroneous and a damage to the 
country, would have been avoided if our legislators and jurists had 
approached the matter of enacting and construing the laws of the land 
in the spirit of your great Pennsylvanian, Justice Wilson—in the spirit 
of Marshall and of Washington. Such decisions put us at a great dis¬ 
advantage in the battle for industrial order as against the present in¬ 
dustrial chaos. If we interpret the Constitution in narrow instead of 
broad fashion, if we forsake the principles of Washington, Marshall, Wil¬ 
son and Hamilton, we as a people will render ourselves impotent to deal 
with any abuses which may be committed by the men who have accumu¬ 
lated the enormous fortunes of to-day, and who use these fortunes in still 
vaster corporate form in business. 

“ The legislative or judicial actions and decisions of which I complain, 
be it remembered, do not really leave to the States power to deal with 
corporate wealth in business. Actual experience has shown that the 
States are wholly powerless to deal with this subject; and any action 
or decision that deprives the nation of the power to deal with it, 
simply results in leaving the corporations absolutely free to work with¬ 
out any effective supervision whatever; and such a course is fraught 
with untold danger to the future of our whole system of government, 
and, indeed, to our whole civilization.” 

This, the President’s clarion call back to the doctrines of 
James Wilson and the other federalist fathers, should prove 
epoch-making. The basic principles of these doctrines Wilson 
enunciated before even a single one of the Federalist papers had 
been written, and they proved the intellectual inspiration to 
Washington, Madison, Jay, Hamilton and other leaders of the 
day. But the work did not stop there. The Wilson spirit lived 
on. The main line of the argument in Webster's famous reply 
to Ha} r ne was clearly outlined by Wilson nearly a half-century 
before, and it was the backbone of the argument in Andrew 
Jackson’s ringing proclamation of December, 1832, against Nul¬ 
lification, and of his powerful message of January, 1833, on the 
same subject. Both used Wilson’s unanswerable arguments, and 
both builded upon the framework of his logic. 

And so it was with Marshall in those great decisions which 
are the imperishable foundations of his immortality as Chief 
Justice. The revered Marshall’s glory, as the greatest ex- 


16 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 

pounder of the issues raised under the Constitution, dur¬ 
ing the first century of the nation’s life, can never pale; 
yet he was bounded and restricted by the limitations of 
the issues before him for adjudication. He could not ex¬ 
ceed them, and research is showing that in what he did Marshall 
but courageously followed in the footprints of Wilson, who broke 
the trail and blazed the way for him, “ploughing,” as has been 
said, “with his own heifer”; and, greater than expounder, Wilson 
stands as a creator—“the real founder of what is distinctive in 
our American jurisprudence” (Baldwin supra). 

The Constitution marches on; new conditions and new 
problems are pressing for solution. Eventually, they must be 
met by the Supreme Court of the United States. The Wilson 
doctrine presents the key. Its essence, as well as its logical 
sequence, is simply this: The Constitution should he so construed 
that there shall he neither vacancies nor interferences between 
the limits of State and National jurisdictions; both together 
should compose hut one uniform and comprehensive system 
of government and laws. The evolution of our national life, 
the onward and upward “march of the Constitution,” Mar¬ 
shall’s magic wand of interpretation and Webster’s faultless 
logic—these all with unerring precision illumine Wilson’s tran¬ 
scendent grasp of the fundamental principles of our dual form of 
government, which he so deftly wove into the matchless fabric 
of our Constitution. 

This is neither the time nor the place for a technical exposi¬ 
tion of the Wilson doctrine. A brief quotation, however, from 
Wilson’s long and able argument on inherent national powers 
will be appropriate. This argument, made in 1785, when the 
United States was under the Articles of Confederation, is even 
more applicable to present-day questions under the Constitution: 

“ Has the United States in Congress assembled a legal and constitu¬ 
tional power to institute and organize the Bank of North America, 
by charter of incorporation? .... 

“ We presume it will not be contended that any or each of the States 
could exercise any power or act of sovereignty extending over all the 
other States or any of them; or, in other words incorporate a bank, 
commensurate to the United States. . . . 

“ Though the United States in Congress assembled derive from the 
particular States no power, jurisdiction, or right, which is not ex¬ 
pressly delegated by the confederation, it does not thence follow, that 



JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT. 


17 


the United States in Congress have no other powers, jurisdiction, or 
rights, than those delegated by the particular States. 

“ The United States have general rights, general powers, and general 
obligations, not derived from any particular States, nor from all the 
particular States, taken separately; but resulting from the union of 
the whole; and, therefore, it is provided, in the fifth article of the 
confederation, that ‘ for the more convenient management of the general 
interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed’ 

‘ to meet in Congress.’ 

“ To many purposes, the United States are to be considered as one 
undivided, independent nation; and as possessed of all the rights, powers 
and properties by the law of nations incident to such. Whenever an 
object occurs, to the direction of which no particular State is com¬ 
petent, the management of it must, of necessity, belong to the United 
States in Congress assembled. There are many objects of this extended 
nature.” 

Here Wilson’s brilliant brain crystallized gems of logic which 
have ever since been running as “the dust of diamonds in the 
hour-glass” of our national jurisprudence. 

Yet committees of the Congress, while knowing the necessity 
for sane federal action concerning some of the corporations en¬ 
gaged in business beyond the borders of the State of domicile, 
whose acts thereby extend from and beyond the State of origin 
into the Nation at large, deem the Congress restricted by phases 
of the doctrine of State rights; and even judicial committees, 
ignorant of the spirit of the Constitution as expounded by Wil¬ 
son, believe the legislative branch of the Government paralyzed 
by reason of the judicial development of a dictum which crept 
into a decision of the Supreme Court, to the effect that insurance 
is not a subject of interstate commerce, wholly ignoring the fact 
that federal control may be sustained on far broader and more 
fundamental principles of constitutional interpretation than 
those governing the mere construction of the interstate commerce 
clause of the Constitution. 

If, however, the Supreme Court, by a failure, at times, since 
the days of Marshall, to take a comprehensive view of the effects 
of certain judicial decisions—decisions which, without unset¬ 
tling any property right or principle of law, might at least as 
logically have been the other way; such as, that the business of 
insurance conducted throughout the United States is not inter¬ 
state commerce—if the Court, as a result of this, is actually permit¬ 
ting the executive and legislative departments of the Government 


18 


THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 


to be handicapped, then may the spirit of James Wilson, its first 
great Justice, and that of Marshall, descend upon the Court and 
at once! The reviewer here speaks as one of the sovereign people, 
who, while under the Constitution, are yet behind it, and by 
whose sanction alone it exists in its present form or any form, 
and who in the last analysis possess absolute power and juris¬ 
diction to reverse even the Supreme Court. This power the 
people have already once exercised by an explanatory amend¬ 
ment—the eleventh to the Constitution—reversing, for political 
reasons in 1797, one of the points decided five years before in 
Chisholm versus Georgia, though leaving in full force the real 
value to the nation of that great decision. If the Supreme 
Court, through judicial acquiescence in the dictum in Paul 
versus Virginia, have constructively misconstrued the term 
“commerce,” so far as the business of interstate insurance is 
concerned, so that it is beyond recall by their own act, the Con¬ 
stitution is yet equal to the emergency—and the Court, embody¬ 
ing the highest development of our civilization, will also be; 
for, ere, the Constitution left the skilled hands of the fathers, 
there was incorporated in it the provision that “The Congress 
shall have power to . . . provide for the . . . general welfare 
of the United States ." 

In recent years the public have heard much of the interstate 
commerce clause of the Constitution, but very little of the 
general welfare clause, yet it is the blanket provision of 
the Constitution, and it is a power which, while undoubt¬ 
edly an inherent national power, the people of the nation 
have specifically delegated to the Federal Government by the 
Constitution. It enunciates in explicit terms the power of the 
Congress to exercise this the highest type of national sov¬ 
ereignty. It is destined in the centuries yet to come to have a 
vitally important place in our jurisprudence. It is capable of 
an infinite adaptation to the evolution of our life as a nation. 
Its proper application will make impossible either vacancies or 
interferences between State and National jurisdictions. Yet it 
is a sharp-edged and dangerous tool, like the surgeon’s knife 
which, in skilled hands, deftly wielded, saves life; but misused, 
takes it. It awaits the deft hand of the second Marshall. He 
must yet arise, to declare, with the same keen insight and the 
same courage as the first, the power of the National Government 


JAMES WILSON, PATRIOT. 


19 


to legislate concerning every object relating to the general wel¬ 
fare of the United States to which at least no particular State 
is competent, and for him Wilson has cleared the path and 
blazed the trail as he did for the great Marshall. Any other 
theory belies the spirit of our institutions and declares the 
“march of the Constitution” ended. 

And of Wilson* himself! No one who realizes his great crea¬ 
tive work can but bow in deference to his genius and the mighty 
things achieved. What tribute of love, respect and venera¬ 
tion, however great, can be commensurate with Wilson’s labors 
for the nation he loved, for the nation he helped to create and in 
whose service he died? Even if republics have been ungrateful 
in the past, shall it be said that the American Eepublic is un¬ 
grateful to such an one as Wilson? Perchance ere many years 
have passed, there will loom in bronze within the shadow of the 
Capitol at Washington, erected by “the people of the United 
States ” the giant form of Wilson, near that of Marshall, and in 
his hand a quill and scroll with “Constitution” inscribed there¬ 
on— “Lest we forget, lest we forget” 

Lucien H. Alexander. 


* James Wilson was born near St. Andrews, Scotland, September 14th, 
1742; educated at the Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow and Edin¬ 
burgh; emigrated to America, 1765; member of Continental Congress; 
signer of Declaration of Independence; member of the United States Con¬ 
stitutional Convention, 1787; Justice of the Supreme Court of United 
States, 1789-1798; died at Edenton, North Carolina, August 21st, 1798. 
























































































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